


Witch Heart

by SeoMad (Allganne)



Series: The Witch Heart [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Anxiety, Dubious Consent, M/M, Magic, Magic Taeyong, Panic Attacks, Past Lovers, Soldier johnny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 15:10:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18919549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allganne/pseuds/SeoMad
Summary: Johnny Seo left White Stone as a conscript, leaving behind his home, his future in the Witch Guard and the only person he’s ever loved. Five years later he returns to the Witch Heart as a decorated soldier, Legion Commander, and a war hero.But while much has changed about the Neo City in the last five years, the biggest change is in the boy he left behind.Taeyong is no longer the child of Summer Rain that Johnny remembers. In his place is a cold fixture of the Witch Court, the Tempest Prince, they call him, and worst of all, he wants nothing to do with Johnny.





	Witch Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fantasy world building one shot that just wouldn't die. So sorry about that.  
> I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> If you would like to come and ask questions I would love to have you <3  
> [ @CaptainJacq](http://twitter.com/captainJacq)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Curious Cat"](Http://curiouscat.me/CaptainJacq)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> PS  
> There is a moment where Taeyong and Johnny dont use their words properly and so if dubious consent may be triggering to you, please feel free to check with me via twitter. My DM's are always open. xxx

White Stone could be seen as a white-cast shadow on the horizon for two days shy of their arrival, but no real amount of time could prepare Johnny for the feeling that envelopes him as he rides through the Southern Gate and up into the heart of a city he has not seen in far too long.

It has been nearly five full years since he has last been in the Witch Heart of the southern prefectures. The  _world_  has changed twice over in that time, and Johnny has changed more than that himself again. But the staccato steps feel the same as he and his men walk the distance to the Hollow Gates at the entrance to the Heart itself.

Jaehyun is a warm weight at Johnny’s right, Kun to his left and Mark a giddy shadow just behind him as they walk the cicular paths down the ravine towards the castle where he and his men will be formally greeted back into the Neo City.

“Feeling up to it?” Jaehyun murmurs as they reach the final curve in the path and Johnny glances back at his friend with an arched brow, fighting down the wave of nervousness that has kept his heart pounding in his chest since dawn. Jaehyun simply smirks at Johnny’s expression until Kun murmurs something beyond Johnny’s hearing and Jaehyun chuckles under his breath.

Johnny squares his shoulders and fights to ignore his brothers as they take the last few steps to where the cherry blossoms stretch outwards into a wall of pink at the very entrance of the Hollow Gates.

There are five members of the Royal Line waiting for them and Johnny hates that his eyes find him before he’s ready. That even after five years apart he can find Taeyong in a moment without even looking. He is no taller than Johnny remembers, but he has grown into his features in a way that seems subtle to Johnny’s memory. His eyes seem larger, his jaw more refined, cheekbones sharper, and the steel grey of his hair hollows him out in a way that the cherry blossom pink of their childhood never did. After five years Taeyong is nothing that Johnny remembers, and yet more beautiful than Johnny has ever seen.

But he is not alone.

Taeyong is just one of the contingent, standing shoulder to shoulder with four of his brethren. It takes a moment before Johnny recognises Donghyuck, standing at Taeyong’s left. He looks almost fully grown now, his cheeks no longer round and soft with childhood, and there is a calmness to his stance that Johnny had never seen before. He does not look at all out of place, standing amongst the other Princes, his tunic dark and red, embroidered in brilliant gold rays of sunshine. His arms are bare, sun kissed and almost entirely encompassed in glowing runes.

The world truly has changed completely in the last five years it seems, that the sun-kissed child of Johnny’s youth stands as a Prince of the Witch Heart wearing more runes than Johnny’s entire contingent combined.

Even Taeyong, darling of the Witch Heart, had never had so many as they were growing.

But Taeyong’s arms are covered now, as is the rest of him, in a coat made of stormlight and scales, as he stands at attention as the Witch Prince he was always set to be. 

But now Johnny stands with a Commanders airs and a Commanders Duties he was never due to have, and Taeyong stands next to Prince Jongin with his hair long and silver, his clothes black and sharp, and his expression closed.

The world has changed around them and they have changed with it.

“Commander Seo,” Prince Leeteuk says, stepping forward from his place at the far right, as eldest it is his right to see them through, and it is the right of the others to deny them entry.

When he and Taeyong were children, Teukie used to threaten to deny them through the Gates as punishment for being too rowdy and disrespectful. A harmless threat that no one would ever consider giving a child, no matter their crimes.

But as a Wartime Commander, Johnny is far beyond that. His choices have had far reaching consequences, and if the Witch Heart have disagreed with any of them, then the dishonour of being turned away is only the first recompense he and his men could face.

He left this place five years ago wearing the grey uniform of a rankless soldier, his hair too short and his grip too tight on his blade. He returns now in black armour, his shoulders embroidered with the cherry blossom tree of the Witch Heart in brilliant silver thread, his wrists decorated in runes bestowed to him by members of this very welcome council.

Still, he bows with the same reverence he did as a child.

“Prince Leeteuk, I return myself and my men to White Stone at your call. I beg the Witch Heart entry at your mercy.”

Leeteuk’s smile is a familiar warmth as Johnny stands tall again and an old part of him basks in the flush of pride. Taemin is wearing a similar smile, appearing more elfin than when Johnny last saw him on the Walls some six months prior. Taeyong’s expression is still blank but for his brows that are furrowed and the pinch of anxiety around his mouth.

It is a look Johnny cannot remember for all the years they spent together.

Hyuckie is barely containing a grin. That at least has not changed.

“I have no reason to deny entry to our finest soldiers on their return home. You have served your people well, Commander Seo. And your soldiers have served you, yes?”

“They have indeed, Prince Leeteuk. They deserve their homes and their loves and their children.”

“Then I have no reason to deny you entry home,” Leeteuk smiles and turns to Taemin.

“I have no reason to deny you entry,” Taemin says.

“I too have no reason to deny you entry,” Jongin says with a gentle smile.

Johnny looks to Taeyong with joy in his heart as he waits for the words.

Taeyong stays silent for a long moment that draws the attention of his three predecessors.

There is a single instant where the blank look of disinterest on his face flutters and wavers and breaks and Johnny’s heart breaks with it.

“I have no reason to deny you entry,” Taeyong says, his voice breaking only slightly, but there is a ringing in Johnny’s ears as Donghyuck hurries to say his part as if to make up for Taeyong’s hesitation.

Johnny barely hears him as he fights to pull himself together again in the shadow of the Hollow Gates.

His brain is buzzing in his ears to the point he only rights himself again when Jaehyun treads on the back of his shoe to signal his attention again and he bows in thanks, just as he is supposed to. But his brain is stuck on Taeyong.

“Thankyou,” he says, as the five Princes step back to line their path through the Gates. He squares his shoulders and leads the way through the stone arches, his brothers at his back and

Prince Leeteuk moves to guide them into the castle proper and Johnny fights his every instinct to turn around, to look towards Taeyong.

This is not the home coming that he had expected. He has dreamt only of this, of Taeyong, for months, since the moment he received word that they could come home.

That their time at the wall was over.

It was, perhaps, too little too late.

Five years was perhaps too long. Accepting the command was perhaps too much –

He knows the moment Taeyong slips away and does not follow them into the banquet hall. He feels the moment Taeyong disappears, and despite the warm weight of Jaehyun, Kun and Mark at his back, he feels the ache of a winter wind down his spine.

“Welcome home, Commander,” Prince Leeteuk smiles, eyes strained.

But for the first time in more than five long years, it does not feel like home.

*

“That was a frostier welcome than I was expecting,” Jaehyun says hours later, as he sets down his jacket. Johnny just watches as Kun smacks him and shoots him a look that Johnny can’t be bothered deciphering.

He feels exhausted after their dinner in a way he didn’t know he could.

He has lived through battle after battle along the Wall, gone days without sleep, without a good meal or even anything that wasn’t  _literally_  frozen solid. He’s had to defrost his socks over the fire and scrape mud off every crevice of his entire body and thread a needle through his own skin more times than he can count.

But the moment with Taeyong, watching him crack, ever so slightly, seems to have hollowed him out faster than any of it combined.

The only thing he feels is a sharp-knived embarrassment that he has held faith in something for so long he did not acknowledge it souring.

“What?” Jaehyun is mouthing at Kun when Johnny finally turns around.

“It’s what he deserves for pissing off the goddamn Tempest,” Jaehyun mutters under his breath as he slumps down onto the chaise lounge. Mark is just wandering around the room gawking at the apartments furnishings and it takes Johnny a moment to remember that Mark is a pastor’s legacy and the opulence of the Witch Heart is far beyond anything he’s ever seen before.

Still, even Mark keeps shooting Jaehyun and his bitch mouth half worried glances before flickering to Johnny and then back to the paintings on the wall before repeating.

“You shouldn’t call him that,” Johnny says, quieter and more forlorn than he intended. Jaehyun at least has the gall to look a little ashamed of himself.

Jaehyun might not have grown up hand-in-hand with Taeyong as Johnny did, but he was stationed here before they left for the Wall, training amongst the others destined for the Witch Guard.

In another life Jaehyun would have spent his years protecting Taeyong as Johnny had been meant to. As he had sworn to, long before they were old enough to sit alone at even their Children’s table.

Taeyong had been known as the child of Spring back then, and no one had been afraid of him.

The world had existed only as a future of what they  _would_  be, in place of now, where every corner Johnny treads reminds him of everything that he has  _become_.

They have both strayed much further from the paths they had been given as children.

Not least of all the paths they had thought they would always walk together.

Johnny’s heart hurts, but perhaps he deserves it.

Perhaps they were wrong to do this quietly, without fight; perhaps guarding their hearts had been the wrong choice.

Because he has returned now to find Taeyong’s heart frozen, and his own in aching pieces.

“You have your work cut out for you, Johnny. The only way to clear any of this is to talk to him and given the fact he was almost willing to deny us entry back home says a lot more than you ever said,” Kun says.

Johnny scoffs.

“He never would have denied us.”

“That was  _before_. The Taeyong you used to know is gone, Johnny. It’s been five years, and he has a reputation. You’ve heard the stories yourself and there are rumours in the lower town right now that he killed an entire rice crop out of nowhere nearly a month ago and that the cows still wont drink the water. That’s the same time we got our orders to march back. It sounds like he does not want you here.”

“Damn, hyung, what did you do?” Mark scoffs and Johnny shoots him a look that has the kid skulk back to poking at the decor.

“Whatever the rumours and whatever is between us, Taeyong wouldn’t do anyone harm. I know that much,” Johnny says, with a belligerent faith he has held onto for far too long.

Kun’s expression is soft, pinched, but resolute.

“He’s a Prince of the Witch Heart, Johnny. He might not have to wash the blood off the same way we do, but they do more to keep our borders here than anyone else outside of the Black City. He’s worked with the Witch King by personal invitation and stays with the Witch Queen whenever he’s called out of White Stone.  _Boah_  lets him stay in her  _personal apartments_ , Johnny. He isn’t the boy you remember, and neither are you.”

“That might be the case, but until I hear it from his own mouth, Kun, I’ll keep to the promise I made.”

“Which promise? The one where you’d be back in two years or the one where you’d write?” Jaehyun snorts and anger flares up in Johnny, bright and bursting and he spins around to stare Jaehyun down but the look on his friend’s face does little more than make Johnny’s anger disappear like a wisp.

Because he knows he’s right, they  _all_  know Jaehyun is right.

Kun takes a few careful steps forward and takes Johnny’s clenched fists in hand.

“I know you know him better than us all, Johnny. But you need to be careful with this. No one knows the promises you made each other except yourselves, but you have both changed and it’s clear for whatever reason that Taeyong is hurting. Be careful and be  _kind._  You may do more damage trying to heal things than if you let him keep his own pace. You have the time; you’re  _home._  You don’t have to worry about the wall anymore.”

Johnny lets out a long breath and uncurls his fingers, the runes along his wrists fading back to black ink one by one.

*

The core of the Witch Heart is only ever this alive twice a day: once at Dawn, and again at Noon.

In the halls of the Witch Heart itself, magic is a tangible thing, bursting at its most powerful, the veils clear, and runes alight. Most spells take place in the moments just after dawn, when the light first touches the ground and the day is new and powerful.

There are those, like Donghyuck, whose power is greatest at Noon, under the face of the Full Sun, or like Taeil who is at his best under the light of the Moon.

But regardless of age or speciality, Dawn is power unto herself.

Even Johnny’s runes are glowing beneath his gloves.

But while the Witch Heart itself is at its busiest, so too are the marshal training grounds.

Even Johnny’s men have scattered between themselves as they move through their morning drills, stretching out their limbs and their hangovers from the night before.

On the other side of the arena the Witch Guard are doing the same, bedecked in their armour and discipline, they make Johnny’s inner circle of soldiers look like little more than a skirmish of boys at play.

It doesn’t help that Kun’s latest herd of ducklings are chaos personified who draw only the worst out of each other at any moment their attention slips and after a night of revelry celebrating their return, it is a small miracle they are awake or even alive at all.

They are all excellent on the Wall, and Johnny hasn’t much desire to curb their childishness; they are barely out of childhood after all and he has grown fond of all of them.

Mark was the same, once; eager and brash and bright and that is not something Johnny desires any of them to lose.

Working through drills keeps them contained at the very least, and draws even Johnny’s own focus well enough that by the end he is breathing hard and sweating harder and he feels  _good_ , for the first time since his return.

It only lasts as long as it takes for him to break their training in favour of food which is when he notices the shadow of starlight lurking along the parapet and his stomach jolts.

Sending a nervous glance in Kun’s direction, his friend seems perfectly distracted by Yangyang that Johnny slips away without notice.

It’s easy then, to find Yuta.

Dressed in midnight blue, his runes leave the glimmer of starlight behind him and he catches the light accordingly.

Like them all, five years has aged Yuta in ways Johnny didn’t quite expect. His hair is blonde and scatters over his eyes like a shadow Johnny knows he’s created on purpose.

There is a sour curl to his lip, like he knows too much, like the stars have been whispering in his ears too long and there are no secrets left to tell.

He’s angry, and Johnny understands why.

“You won’t catch your kitten so easily, Commander Seo,” he says, settling against the curve of the bannister. His eyes are sharp behind his bangs, and Johnny feels suitably chastened, suitably examined, like the Witch can see the future in his entrails.

“I’m not here to catch him,” he says, and watches Yuta’s reaction carefully.

His eyes narrow and his fingers drum in a quick legato against the bannister, fireflies scattering from under his painted nails. A Witch of the Stars in the early dawn light with power to spare.

“Then we have to at least wonder why you’re here at all,” Yuta sneers and Johnny sighs.

“Is it so awful to think perhaps I’ve just come home?”

“The only one who believes that is Donghyuck and he spends far too long listening to the Sunshine to make much sense at all. Besides, there are agendas at work, Commander, you cannot be so ignorant as to believe otherwise. With you here there is no one in charge of your men at the Wall, and not all of them will be returning home permanently.”

“Then maybe that’s why I’m here. To understand if I have a place here at all. Whether or not I should go back.”

Yuta scoffs.

“There are shadows here that belong to you, Johnny, and unless you claim them even Donghyuck’s sunshine will not keep them forever. They  _will_  fade away.”

Johnny’s heart pangs.

“If I talk to him, will he listen?” he asks, more tentative than he has allowed himself to be thus far.

Yuta’s expression softens, and for a moment Johnny feels as young as his memories. He feels the past whisper through five long years, where Yuta still wore a tunic of his homeland instead of star covered robes, and Johnny wore a very different uniform altogether.

“He’ll listen, but I don’t know when. You’re going to need your strength, Commander. It takes stamina to weather the storms here. The Wall is a very different place.”

“Has he said anything at all?” he asks, after a long moment, and Yuta barks a hollow laugh.

“Oh, he has been ever so painfully quiet. For five fucking years. If he has anything to say, Doyoung is the only one to hear it, and  _he_  is far more loyal than anyone here, myself included.”

Johnny feels the sting as Yuta clearly intended. The bitterness not entirely his own.

“Will he hear me out?”

Yuta laughs, his lips curling quickly into a smirk that Johnny could almost say is  _fond_.

“Doyoung? Stars no. Be glad you still have your hair or your heartbeat. Our poor lamb went a bit nuts when we got word of your return. The lower town still hasn’t quite forgiven him for ruining the thatching again. Doyoung has been on a warpath ever since.”

Johnny’s heart lurches, and he looks at Yuta wide-eyed. His old friend must see far more than Johnny is feeling because Yuta’s dramatics seem to wither, and he rests a solemn hand on Johnny’s arm.

“They love him as they love a summer storm, as an untouchable force to be expectant and wary of. But you ruined him, Youngho. I wish I could say otherwise but he’s not the same man he was when you left. He’s not the same man when you chose to stay gone.”

“There wasn’t any other choice.”

“To him there was. You promised to come back to him, and you chose otherwise. You should have written him back. Staying silent like that was callous.”

“I thought it was for the best,” he says, trying desperately to believe it for himself.

“Then you’re a dumbass and belong in the muck and viscera and should go back before you hurt him again. I won’t stand for it, you know. I love him too.”

*

Just as Yuta warns him, finding Taeyong to even show he has interest in talking at all proves much harder than Johnny anticipates.

It’s not that Taeyong is hiding; in fact, Johnny sees him often, and not always at a distance.

He is in the Heart Stone that very same day when Johnny is called to a meeting with Leeteuk and Eunhyuk about his soldiers. Johnny feels his gaze on his back, but nothing comes of it; by the time he turns away from the elder Witch Prince, Taeyong is long gone.

He sees Taeyong and Yuta across the halls as he’s leaving his barracks the following morning and again nothing, though Yuta does send him a shatter of sparks just to prove his point.

And while Taeyong is never at the communal midday meal, he is always at dinner.

He sits at the table with the younger Witches and talks amongst them happily.

Most of them are faces Johnny recognises. Taeyong and Yuta and Doyoung are familiar old friends, But Johnny barely recognises Jaemin, who he remembers as being smaller than even Donghyuck the last time he had seen Jaemin or Jeno, his young Witch Guard.

There are faces he barely remembers well, including Renjun, a small dark-haired boy who cannot decide if he’s frowning or smiling any time Donghyuck and Jaemin open their mouths. There is even a younger boy still who Johnny does not know at all, whose laughter sounds like bells and is just as noisy. He too walks with a Witch Guard as his Shadow, a lanky boy who smiles softly enough that Johnny’s heart wants to bleed.

There are others who Johnny only knows through rumour, like the copper haired Witch who sits between Doyoung and Taeil and spends most of his meals sharing his plate between the two older Witches like he cannot decide whose attention he wants more.

The Witch of Abundance, Jungwoo.

But the coven is much larger than the last time Johnny was here, and there are even a handful of empty seats scattered around the table that Johnny’s gaze lingers on. Ten is missing, as is Sicheng, and the room feels far emptier without them.

But after five years rumours can only go so far.

There are a thousand reasons for their absence and Johnny could spend hours withering through them all. Perhaps Amber had finally decided to keep Ten in the Black City long term or Yunho had called upon them as emissaries amongst the refugee camps and border towns.

Johnny simply  _doesn’t know_ , and given by the half-smirk Leeteuk is wearing, he knows he’s doing a poor job of hiding it.

Things are simply too transparent here in the Heart Stone, and that is before he shared his entire life with those who still call it home.

Almost everyone knows of his history, of the unanswered questions lurking in the air between him and Taeyong. No one is even pretending to honour their silence on the subject, and Johnny has felt the whispers hanging between the halls like spider webs since the moment he returned.

“Are you enjoying being home again, Johnny?” Jongin asks and Johnny pulls his gaze away from the back of Taeyong’s head almost painfully.

“I am. Though I am perhaps too unfamiliar here to call her home still.”

“Give it time, the weather changes here far too often for things to remain so stagnant,” Heechul chuckles and Johnny tries not to blush, nor to kick Jaehyun under the table where he is snickering.

“I’ll keep an eye on the horizon,” he agrees, and lets Leeteuk pour him more wine.

*

When Johnny emerges from the Heart Stone the following morning Donghyuck is sitting cross legged on the low wall next to the sundial shuffling his cards and laying out deck after deck. His expression brightens when he notices Johnny however, and under the onslaught of the Sun Prince’s brilliant smile Johnny’s feet carry him over to the boy without much thought.

He hasn’t seen Donghyuck since the greeting ceremony except across the room at dinner, and it has been three full days since they returned, and Johnny is surprised it has taken this long.

The Donghyuck he remembers had nowhere near the same restraint that this older boy is attempting. But for Johnny a  _thousand_  things have changed, and the little boy he remembers had never even been considered to take the title of a Witch Prince.

But while Hyuckie may have found more patience in the last five years, he has nowhere near the cunning he thinks he does. It’s obviously a trap, the boy  _clearly_  has something he wants to say, and Johnny cannot begrudge him that.

Not when he allowed Yuta to threaten him on the very first morning.

“Hello, Sunshine,” Johnny says as he approaches.

“Hyung! Oh, how the Witch Heart has  _missed you_ ,” Hyuckie says as Johnny comes to a stop and Johnny snorts, perching on the wall next to the disorganised display of Hyuck’s cards.

He looks softer today than he did at the arrival ceremony. Dressed in a white tunic and red trousers he looks far more of the young man barely out of childhood that he is.

Like every Witch here, he is still dressed beautifully, his eyes kohl-lined and lips painted, even his dark hair curls over his forehead and Johnny isn’t sure if it’s something Hyuck does to it or if it’s simply the way it grows now. He is covered in jewellery just the way he always threatened he would be, ears glinting and wrists jingling with every move he makes as he picks up his cards and starts to shuffle them.

“What of you, Hyuckie? Did you miss me?” Johnny teases, enjoying the still childish way Hyuck’s cheeks puff up when he pouts.

“Of course I did! But I always knew you were coming back.”

“Did you?”

“It’s what I  _do,_  hyung,” he whines and offers Johnny the deck. Johnny hesitates, eyeing the black and gold cards with a careful eye before he picks out his choices. Johnny is familiar with a Deck of Many Things. There are hundreds of them at the Wall, owned by lesser witches, by soldiers and the superstitious. He has even had Donghyuck read his cards before.

But he would be a fool to forget where they are, who he is sitting with. Donghyuck still pulls at his heart strings, but taking the cards offered by a Witch Prince is a sentence Johnny isn’t sure he is willing to commit to yet.

The only way this could be worse, is if Donghyuck had organised this at Noon; sitting in the sunshine is already bad enough. But Johnny’s heart skips a beat and he has to try to hide a fond smile when Hyuck only lets him take two of his proffered five before he sweeps the deck back and cuts it once and then twice and shuffling it again with nimble fingers.

“So, you’ve got a lot better at this have you?” he teases as Hyuck slides the entire deck across the rocks, runs his finger in the opposite direction to flip the cards face up before, with a dissatisfied grunt, he shuffles them again.

“Taeyong wouldn’t let me be on the Council if I wasn’t,” he says with a confidence that makes Johnny’s smile grow even fonder.

“This isn’t how they do it on the Wall,” Johnny nods down at the cards.

“Well there’s more power here than the  _Wall,_ ” Hyuckie sneers. “And it’s important to get this right. Your future isn’t set yet. On the wall it was. The only thing to know there was when you were coming  _back._ ”

“None of my decisions mattered to the Sun did it?”

“ _No._ You’re a good person, hyung. You always did everything where she could see you. She knows you. It’s why she let you come home.”

“She made that decision, did she?”

“I told you; I’m good at this.” Hyuck smiles happily before offering Johnny the deck again to select his final cards.

He seems pleased with the results.

Johnny looks down at his cards and cannot read them.

He has never seen a Deck like this before. Never seen cards like these.

Donghyuck looks relieved.

“Taeyongie never believed me when I said she was watching over you.”

Johnny’s heart hurts and he draws his gaze away from the cards.

Away from the golden foil of a lightning storm.

“He always did take a lot of convincing,” Johnny croaks.

*

There is a lump in Taeyong’s throat that has been there for exactly four days now, and it still hurts to breathe around it.

Wind scatters between his fingers as the power in his chest builds, and he crooks a spark of it to swirl the wine in his glass in distraction. Trying desperately to ignore the eddying build-up of power in his bloodstream.

He is one stresser away from another storm breaking, and he knows it.

Worse still, the others know it too.

Doyoung hasn’t left his side since the warning letter came through from the Peak saying they were half a day’s march away.

Taeil keeps trying to make his calming moonbeams hang over the Witch Heart but Taeyong hasn’t been able to keep the wind at bay and they haven’t lasted long.

He feels awful and anxious and knows that his friends are in damage control already and he hasn’t even looked Commander Seo in the eye for longer than it took to greet him through the Gates.

And even that went terribly.

Yuta’s cackling laughter had been the only thing to settle his nerves afterwards, when they finally coaxed it out of him.

A Witch Prince denying a celebrated Commander entry home because of a spurned childhood love. It’s enough to set rumours going amongst the nobility for months if it ever leaves White Stone.

Taeyong is simply pleased that Tennie isn’t here to see it or he wouild  _never_  live it down.

He’s come a long way, since Johnny left in the first place.

And he wishes, with all his heart, that he could have become something else. Something wonderful.

Instead he’s _this_.

The Tempest Prince, they call him. A Witch of the Storm.

He has let his hair grow too long, he thinks not for the first time, as he watches Doyoung fuss with it in the reflection of his wine glass.

He has let too many things grow complacent, his hair only one of them. It is still as grey as it has been since he learned that… that Commander Seo was being recalled from the Wall.

That he had finally made a decision after nearly two years of delays.

It had stormed for hours after, the air static and charged and he had been completely unable to deal with it. It had taken both Taeil and Yuta to clear it, and Hyuckie had spent nearly the entire day in the market square blowing runes out into the air like dandelions. Jungwoo and Chenle wound up spending three days moving from farm to farm in the surrounding prefecture dispelling the sourness Taeyong’s hurt had left lurking in the puddles and water systems.

The guilt has eaten at him for weeks, and now that Commander Seo is actually back, so too is the anxiousness and anger. His magic is more volatile and uncontrollable than it has been for years and it is wearing him down.

He is tired, _exhausted_ , just controlling his own power. He hasn’t felt this… unsettled since the early days after Johnny had left.

“You don’t have to talk about it to me,” Doyoung murmurs as he finishes another tiny braid at the back of Taeyong’s neck. “But please talk to someone.”

“There’s nothing to say,” Taeyong replies, feeling the lie sour in his mouth before he lets it out. His magic is as unsettled as he is, and it is punishing him for it.

He prays that Hyuckie’s joy will keep the sunshine, that Yuta isn’t angry enough that he can keep the stars clear. Prays that he is strong enough to keep his magic under control because he doesn’t know if he could stop anything if it slips out.

All it will take is one slip and everything will come tearing down. He knows it will only be worse than the last time and he is already afraid of what will come of it all.

Doyoung lets out a long sigh and slumps himself over Taeyong’s shoulder, tucking his chin into the curve of Taeyong’s neck, impossibly warm from the eternal fire in his chest and Taeyong leans into it, drawing as much comfort as he can.

“You’re allowed to hurt, Yongie,” he says softly. Soft and careful Doyoung, who knows Taeyong better than he knows himself. Who has loved him longer than all but one other.

The Witch of the Hearth, of home and heart and heat.

“Perhaps I’m tired of hurting.”

“I will be a happy man the day you say that with an ounce of truth,” Doyoung says, blowing a sharp gasp of hot air against the back of Taeyong’s neck in punishment.

Taeyong flinches and throws his friend a scowl.

“You think I should talk to him.”

“I think skulking around your own home is foolish. He won’t be here forever. But if you continue to avoid him the hurt will remain. You are only doing more damage, Taeyong. It’s festered too long. It’s time to burn it out.”

Taeyong closes his eyes and slumps back into Doyoung’s hold, his arms wrapping around Taeyong without pause.

“You’re right. As always. Just… give me a day. Just one more day to gather myself.”

“One more day,” Doyoung agrees sourly.

*

Johnny remembers the day Doyoung had arrived in the Witch Heart. A gangly boy of nine hugging the heels of his older brother as if he would be lost without him.

But Gong Myung was called to the Black City a few months later and the young Witch had been left behind to join Heechul’s growing Coven.

Johnny remembers him well enough, mostly in the small jealousies of a boy who had kept Taeyong’s attention almost exclusively his own for too long and had suddenly been forced to share.

But while the awkwardness of youth is one thing Johnny remembers well enough, as a boy without magic of his own, the most memorable moments in the Witch Heart were always the powers of each new child and the excitement of watching them grow.

And Doyoung, compared to the other children of the Heart was… quaint. His powers were weak and quiet and ultimately boring, even to those like Johnny who had no powers at all.

Yuta, on the other hand, had always been powerful, scattering starlight wherever he went from the moment he arrived. Taeil’s magic had been ever-present, a glowing power that was enormous and indescribable to even Taeil himself. Ten’s powers had been mesmerising and bright, as joyous and mischievous as the smiles as he wore as he birthed flowers from the crevices of their school tables and tied vines around their teachers’ ankles during dinner.

Taeyong’s powers had also been so painfully obvious, his hair pink as the cherry blossoms and his laughter carrying spring showers.

Doyoung, on the other hand, had been quiet; he had carried a warmth with him that came and went and for a while Johnny didn’t understand why Doyoung was kept in Heechul’s care at all, something that only happened to the most powerful. Children gathered far and wide to learn in the Witch Heart, the most powerful place in the world shy of the Black City itself.

But, like Doyoung himself, his powers grew, only far more slowly than those around him. It had been such a quiet thing, that ultimately left Johnny at a loss when, by the time he left for the Wall, Doyoung’s dominion lay over fire, as a burning coal he carried everywhere.

But Johnny still didn’t quite understand what Doyoung was capable of until much later.

The Witch of Hearth and Home they call him now.

But Doyoung is far more powerful than the quaint artifice of his name.

Johnny wears a rune from Doyoung’s own hand, blessed to him in his first year at the front. He has used it only twice; once in protection of his own life not long after it had first been gifted to him, and the second time in an act that would decimate a coup on the Fell Wall Gates.

He had been bedridden for days both times.

Doyoung’s powers had never been flashy, he had always carried them quietly, but fire is fire and Johnny has watched the wind crumble bones from the power carried in Doyoung’s chest.

There is a glow of it in Doyoung’s glare now as he settles beside Johnny. The metal of Johnny’s vambrace starts to warm almost immediately where it is pressed against Doyoung’s own arm.

“Control yourself, Doyoung,” he mutters before shooting Kun a smile where he is standing alert under the shade of the low wall where Guanheng and Yangyang are cheering Chenle through a handful of tricks.

“He’s decided he wants to see you,” Doyoung says and Johnny lets out a breath of relief without meaning. Something furtive and precious unfurling inside his chest that almost feels like hope.

Doyoung snorts.

“Be considerate, will you, of whatever nonsense you wish to spout. Have at least one excuse prepared. He will need at least one.”

“Your cynicism is showing.”

“I have my reasons, Commander. As should you,” Doyoung snips and Johnny lets the irritation hang between them for a moment, feeling the brunt of Doyoung avoiding his name. _Commander_.

It is a title he is proud of but feeling it sharply on the tongue of someone he has called a friend for more than half of his life?

He hates it.

“Then why are you questioning them?” He asks, softer than he intends. “You know I wouldn’t have left him if I’d had any other choice.”

“I know the price we pay to be here, Commander. But I also know the prices asked of us and what is  _required_  and they are not always the same. You _chose_ to stay, and you chose to stay quiet, both of those things I cannot forgive.”

“It is not your place to protect him,” Johnny says, angrier than he intends and Doyoung scoffs, eyes narrow and his disbelief edged sharply in amusement.

“It has _always_ been my place. It is what I  _do_. I protect the Witch Heart; this is my home and all who are in it. In protecting Taeyong I protect everyone here, and I am more than prepared to have you returned to the Wall if the need arises. Taeyong is very precious to the Witch Queen, and my brother is well received there. It will not be difficult.”

“Keep your threats, Doyoung. I mean no harm,” Johnny says in earnest, but Doyoung only snorts.

“You never do. That was the promise, after all, that it will do less harm?” it is a slap to the face, Johnny thinks, hearing his own words thrown back at him from someone they do not belong to. He has to blink away the regret that nearly blinds him for a moment, feeling only bitterness left behind.

“Whatever words they were are between Taeyong and I alone. What of your own boy? The Summer child?”

Doyoung barks a laugh in bitter amusement.

“Do not hazard to guess what goes on here, Commander. Jungwoo is not even  _mine._  You have been here barely a week. You might have been favoured here once, but Taeyong is precious to all of us. This is simply your reminder. He is fragile. _You_ made him that way, so be careful with how you tread on his broken pieces. He wishes to give you a chance, but you will only get one. Is that understood?”

“It is.”

“Good,” Doyoung snarls and stalks away, the wind from his cloak scattering cherry blossoms and cinders and when Johnny looks down the flowers still left underfoot are black and curling where they burn.

Kneeling down Johnny takes a brittle flower between two fingers and holds it up to the light, watching as the last remnants of hot ash goes cold in the wind.

*

 

The world is a different place at the Witch Heart, Johnny knows. He had spent nearly the first twenty-two years of his life wandering the roads of White Stone, running along the garden paths of the Heart with Taeyong, playing amongst the flowers and escaping into the forest. He had grown up in the lavish corridors of the castle proper, following Taeyong, always two steps behind.

Walking them alone brings a soft-hearted nostalgia he finds soothing as he rediscovers the echoes of his memory. Things he has clung to for over five years of violence.

The city of White Stone itself has not changed much, the people calm and kind. They bow to him now, as he passes by, but there are still those who remember him and happily pinch his cheeks, and his heart is nearly bursting as he turns himself back towards the castle.

The city is ancient and resilient, but the Witch Heart is ever-more and eternal; that is her beauty. She is awash with the magic of her children and brimming with powers all her own.

Growing up Johnny had been mostly immune to it; but with runes of his own now, he feels it thrumming beneath his feet as she guides him along her paths, along his memories, until he feels calm and content in a way he hasn’t yet since his return.

It is only when his heart is quiet that he spots a familiar glint of gold and chuckles low in throat as he makes his approach and quietly runs his hand along the wall of the castle in thanks.

“What are you two doing here?” Johnny asks, eyebrow quirked as he watches the two boys blush bright in embarrassment as Johnny peers up at Hyuck and Jaemin.

But it only takes a beat for Hyuck’s wide-eyed shock to turn into a disappointed pout and he twists to peer down at Johnny instead of over the other side of the wall.

“No! Go away!” Hyuck says, trying to shoo him off but Johnny just grins and heads straight over.

“Oooh, what are we looking at?” Johnny cheers.

“You’ve ruined it now. They’re going to  _stop,”_  Hyuckie scowls as Johnny grips the top of the wall and heaves himself up to join the two witches. It’s all very obvious then, with the gap between the training building and the supply shed providing a perfect view into one of the training areas where half a dozen of his own men are play fighting with some of the Witch Guard including Jaemin’s boy, Jeno.

Johnny lets out a delighted laugh and Hyuck turns a bright red. Jaemin’s grin just gets wider in the face of Hyuck’s embarrassment. Seemingly immune to his own.

“It’s barely midday they’ll be going a while yet. Xuxi hasn’t even taken his shirt off yet,” Johnny says, trying to console Donghyuck, who makes a sound in his throat that has Johnny laughing again and even Jaemin’s eyes bulge.

Johnny isn’t old by any means, he’s barely seven years older than the two boys in front of him and remembers very well how exasperating it had been in the first few months of the Wall when he was suddenly without Taeyong, living a  _future_  without Taeyong and faced with a thousand men who were mouth wateringly attractive.

Watching Sehun knock the shit out of anyone who came near him with a bow staff had kept Johnny’s dick raw for months.

Jeno’s future had always lay with the personal guard here in the Witch Heart, like Johnny’s had meant to be. He and Jaemin were like a walking echo of Johnny’s own past, complete right down to the shock of pink hair Jaemin is sporting, and it hurts to look at them most of the time.

Boys just in the flush of early adulthood still bound together with an unyielding joy that Johnny envies.

There is nothing really standing in their way from their Binding Ceremony and once that happens it will be interesting to see what Jaemin will truly be capable of with Jeno as his anchor.

A future the War had stopped he and Taeyong from ever reaching themselves.  

While Donghyuck had never found anyone of interest amongst the Witch Guard, it’s easy to see he is drawn towards one of the soldiers, and Johnny would bet easy money he knows exactly which one.

Xuxi likes to take his shirt off at every possible opportunity and is sun kissed as thanks for it.

As the Sun Prince there really isn’t any more choice after that.

Johnny’s heart sinks a little and he throws the boy a careful smile.

“Be careful, Hyuck, Xuxi is going back to the Wall soon.”

The look he gets in return isn’t quite what he’s expecting, and Johnny quietly wonders just how many days Donghyuck has been spying on Xuxi to be this attached already.

“What? I thought you were all staying?” Hyuck splutters, looking wounded by the news.

“ _I’m_  staying. Most of the others are going back. Guanheng, Xuxi and Yangyang all have time to serve yet.”

“What if I want him to stay here?” he says, brow furrowing and it makes him look startlingly childish, like an echo of the baby-faced child who used to follow them around demanding attention.

“Then that’s something you have to deal with on your end, because I have no say in it,” Johnny says honestly.

“Well you should, you’re their Commander, right? Command him to stay here,” he says, definitive and yet, heart achingly, a little desperate.

Like it’s simple, like it’s easy.

*

  
Johnny has been at White Stone seven days when Taeyong finally calls on him to meet.

His heart beats a giddy tempo as he leaves the city itself, but by the time he enters the Briarwood his nerves are frenetic and charged.

He remembers the clearing easily. His feet following the path through the undergrowth like he has never left, though the plants themselves seem to have forgotten him. He has to duck under the branches and brambles more often, and many of the low hanging fronds pull at his uniform like they do not want him to go any further.

But the feeling when he shuffles those last few steps and sees their little alcove for the first time again is indescribable.

Even seeing Taeyong standing there, nervously, does not hinder the feeling of nostalgia that hits him with the weight of an axe to the chest.

This was their place since they were children, escaping the Noona’s meant to watch them, hiding from Heechul and his classes. They had spent countless days here, tucked between the tall grass watching the stars, whispering secrets to each other as if they had any at all.

They shared their first kiss here, forgave their first fights, past jealousies and childish qualms.

This is where Johnny told Taeyong of his conscription, of the lie that it was unavoidable, that he had already asked Heechul to help him and had been turned away.

This is where they said goodbye.

It’s fitting that this is where they meet again, and yet the moment Johnny remembers everything that has happened here, in this little copse of trees, the more he regrets whatever is about to come next.

A foreboding sense that makes him hesitate his last steps.

But Taeyong knows he is there, has heard him for minutes yet, and still he waits until Johnny is almost at the centre of the clearing before he turns around.

His hair is still grey, though perhaps a little lighter than it had been before. His arms are still cloaked in stormlight and scales and the long drape of black silk over one shoulder still makes him an imperial figure.

A Witch Prince of White Stone.

“Commander,” Taeyong says, with a clipped formality that makes Johnny’s heart sink.

“Taeyong,” Johnny murmurs, savouring the name on his tongue as he takes another careful step closer. Taeyong’s eyes follow it sharply and Johnny’s heart sinks again.

He deserves this distance, this formality.

“I’m glad you agreed to see me,” Johnny admits.

“I… am as well. I was worried, that our history would cloud things, but I appreciate your professionalism these last few days. It has made things easier.”

“Is that what you want then? Professionalism?” he asks and tries to ignore the way his heart aches.

Worse still, there is a flicker of something foreign in Taeyong’s expression before he gains control of himself again and Johnny hates it. He hates it  _so much._

“What else were you expecting?” Taeyong asks. “You made it clear the last time we spoke that there was no place for us any longer. And any hope I may have kept burning for you went cold when you decided to stay at the Wall after your conscription ended. That was three years ago.”

“Somehow I don’t believe that,” Johnny says, without thinking. But the lie doesn’t burn and the stricken look in Taeyong’s eyes is familiar, even as he rushes to broaden the metaphorical distance between them.

“What you believe is entirely up to you. But that does not make it the truth,” he says, voice clipped and sharp.

“Then why won’t you let me any closer?” Johnny asks, taking another step forward and watching, his heart sinking, as Taeyong immediately scarpers backwards.

“Because I do not want you to be!” he barks, eyes flashing and Johnny feels a subtle change in the air, a fissure of static that he long grew accustomed to with the lightning witches.

Taeyong blanches, feeling it too, and takes a deep breath to try and collect himself.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry for that day, for what I said to you,” Johnny says, hoping his honesty is enough to mean something.

Taeyong looks at him with wide, dark eyes and something like dread runs down Johnny’s spine.

“Sorry? You’re sorry? If _sorry_ is all that is worth, then I do not want it! You left me with a promise, Commander. Two years; you would fulfil your conscription and you would come back to me. You swore to meet me at the solstice. I gave you my Blessing days and all it took was six months wetting your cock in other soldiers for twenty years with me to mean _nothing_. You tossed me aside and told me not to return and said it was for the best. That it will  _do less harm._ ”

“It’s what I believed,” Johnny tries to tell him, tries to explain. But Taeyong does not want it. There is wind curling around his fingers and a glean of unshed tears in his eyes and Johnny wonders if Taeyong has said a word of this to even Doyoung since he heard the news of Johnny’s return.

Because now that the wall has broken Taeyong seems incapable of holding it back.

“I _believed_ in you, Youngho! I believed in us. You were mine and I was meant to be yours. You told me not to come back but I _did_. I did. I gave you four years of my Blessing Days. I waited for you year after year and not once did you ever come.”

“I couldn’t,” Johnny croaks and Taeyong lets out a shattered laugh.

“You _could_! The time was yours, year after year – I checked! And it’s as if you did not even think of me once. Not once did you even write to me to tell me you were even alive. It’s been more than two thousand days since you left me, and I wish so desperately I did not care. But I do. For some awful reason I care far too much.”

Johnny closes his eyes because this is what he has always feared, this is what he has dreamt of for years, startling awake and shaking. This moment of heartbreak where Johnny had let him go, desperately tried to set Taeyong free, and Taeyong stayed.

Taeyong had clung and for five years Johnny has had the chance to save what he tried to burn. If only he had come to the clearing on the solstice like he had promised he would, instead of drowning his sorrows in soju and war. If only he had sent a single one of the letters he would burn in the last embers of a dying fire.

If he had only been better then this return home could have been very different.

But a single moment could have rent this all asunder regardless. A knife in the dark, a slip on the field and his innards could have spilled into the mud just as easily as being here now.

“All I want is an explanation. All I want is the truth,” Taeyong says.

And that is the last thing Johnny wants to give him.

After all, he had spent twenty years of his life being trained as a warrior. He had grown up with a scabbard at his hip, a knife in his hand, a bow on his back. He had been trained to fight both with his Witch and without, had been attuned to every one of Taeyong’s whims and knew how to adapt his skills to each new opponent.

None of it had mattered in the scrums.

New conscripts had nothing on the wall. It didn’t matter who you had been before, what you had done. Only those who survived long enough to be recognised from their fellow blood covered soldiers warranted any attention. Johnny’s fancy sword fighting had been more hindrance than help, and the only man at his back had been Jaehyun, who was more than willing to punch a monster in the eye when he lost his blades and it saved them both more than once.

Johnny had lost Taeyong long before that first Solstice, where they had agreed to meet an hours’ walk from the encampment.

He had left White Stone with nothing and had lost even that in the scrums. Seeing Taeyong again had been heart wrenching, a pain that ached through him like lost limbs, like burned skin or a knife in the gut and he had hated it.

Hated how hallowed out Taeyong had been.

Because Johnny had been the one learning how to sew his own skin back together again and yet it had been Taeyong who had looked brittle and ill. He had been smaller than Johnny remembered, thinner.

Taeyong had been in the luxury of the Witch Heart and looked worse than Johnny who had been fighting for his life.

He had been bitter and resentful and afraid, because he knew what magic did. He knew what it was capable of. Knew the burden Taeyong was carrying alone, because it had been Johnny’s job to help him carry it. That was the duty of a bound Witch Guard.

Once the ceremony was complete Johnny would have been Taeyong’s anchor and would help him carry the weight of his magic. Help him funnel it. Protect him and balance him and keep him safe.

And Johnny couldn’t do that at the wall.

Taeyong had been alone in the Witch Heart, and Johnny was not coming home.

It had felt like breaking his own heart, like picking broken glass out of skin. Like sewing his abdomen back together again.

It would do less harm, he thought, ending things early. Giving Taeyong the chance to find his replacement. Because Johnny was a nobody, and Taeyong was going to be a Witch Prince.

It had always been his future.

And yet Johnny had survived.

He had survived and all it had cost was Taeyong.

So, he tells him.

And when he is done Taeyong’s lip is bloody where it is caught sharply between his teeth, his whole body trembling and Johnny realises that he is barely holding himself together.

“Taeyong, please – “ he says stepping forward and that movement is enough to send Taeyong scattering into the forest. Johnny reaches out, trying to catch a hold of him before he can disappear but Taeyong is much faster than Johnny remembers, leaving him far behind before he can even finish crossing their clearing.

It takes only a moment before the storm comes in.

Thunder snaps directly overhead with such a loud clamour that it makes Johnny flinch, tripping over his own feet, and when he looks up again the clearing is empty and Taeyong is gone.  

*

Yuta feels it before he does.

There is nothing Doyoung loves more than seeing Yuta in the Witch Heart, than seeing his lover awash with magic and vitality. There is starlight scattering, bouncing off every crook of the staccato ceiling and Doyoung can feel himself awash with it while Yuta scries.

His eyes are golden and alight, his smile is beaming until all of a sudden he stops completely still, like a cat taking note of its prey.

Doyoung sits up, setting his book aside without preamble.

It only takes a beat before Yuta’s eyes glaze back to honey brown and they widen, searching the room before stopping on Doyoung.

“ _Yongie_ ,” he gasps, before clambouring to his feet immediately. Doyoung follows, heart in his throat because there is a fear in Yuta as he runs for the exit of the Heart that Doyoung can feel like a lick of flame.

It is only when they are outside, running towards the shadow of the Briarwood that he feels it too. A roiling chill in the air, a shiver of static electricity and his heart sinks.

He was meeting Johnny today.

“We need to find him!” he shouts, voice cracking as they both look upwards in dawning fear at the dark harrowing clouds rolling quickly over the horizon.

“We need to find him  _now!”_  Yuta corrects and they scamper into the trees as quickly as they can.

Yuta is faster, has _always been_  faster than Doyoung can ever hope to be, and with the Stars guiding his way Yuta is running far ahead and all Doyoung can do is follow.

The rain hits hard before Doyoung finds them, trailing in the wake of Yuta’s starlight, and he is drenched when he fumbles through the last of the trees and finds Yuta in the mud with Taeyong on his knees.

The two of them are drier than he is, by the pure fact that the air is swirling too hard around Taeyong for the rain to hit, guarding him like the eye of a storm.

Taeyong is hyperventilating, his anxiety clawing deep into his chest and making the air lock inside his lungs. He is grasping tightly at the front of Yuta’s robes, and Yuta meets Doyoung’s eyes with a wide-eyed look of helplessness that makes Doyoung’s heart lurch almost painfully.

He fights his way closer, struggling through the growing vortex of Taeyong’s storm and is breathing hard by the time he slumps to his knees in front of them and tries to pull Taeyong a little more upright.

“Taeyong – Taeyongie, you need to breathe. You need to breathe, you’re building up too much!” he croons, trying to pull Taeyong’s attention back to earth, back to him.

But despite his best efforts Taeyong is only looking through him, stuck somewhere between whatever he said to Johnny and the untethered power that he has been fighting for nearly five years.

Doyoung’s heart pangs with a grief he has held back almost as long. He should have expected this. He should have planned for something to go wrong. He should not have held his belief in Johnny Seo, that whatever stupidity has kept Johnny at the wall when he should have been here, would have disappeared once the two of them had simply talked.

But it was never going to be that simple. How could he have been so ignorant?

He braces himself, gently taking Taeyong’s head in his hands and tries again to draw his focus.

Yuta is staring upright at the spiralling eye of Taeyong’s storm, a storm that is _still_  building, without pause or hint of stopping.

“Yongie! You need to stop this; you need to draw it back. We can’t fight this unless you draw it back, baby.”

“I, I c-can’t,” Taeyong whimpers, slumping further into Doyoung’s hold and Doyoung clenches his eyes shut.

Taeyong isn’t in control anymore.

It’s already far worse than the last time Taeyong’s powers overwhelmed him. He had been lucid before; he had been panicking, but lucid, and this time he’s barely aware.

This time the magic has already won.

Doyoung looks up at Yuta, who is stroking Taeyong’s hair and holding his hands tight, letting Taeyong grip so hard his skin is white with the tension of it.

“We need to cut him off,” he says, choking around the words.

Yuta shakes his head.

“Doie – I “

“It has to be you. I’m not powerful enough. It  _has to be you_ ,” he rasps and they both jump as thunder snaps the air directly overhead and Taeyong cries out.

“Yuta, put him down!” Doyoung yells, his hears ringing. He watches Yuta’s eyes slip frantically between Taeyong and himself and Doyoung growls.

“ _Yuta!”_

The wind around them is still building, the lightning crackling overhead, snapping the sky in two and Doyoung is very much the only think holding Taeyong up at all as Yuta climbs back to his feet.

The power and his panic have both completely claimed Taeyong, and his breathing is so quick and sharp that Doyoung isn’t sure if anything is actually reaching his lungs at all.

Doyoung knows the moment Yuta sets aside his own anxiousness and the relief that runs through him is palpable as Yuta holds himself firm against the pull of Taeyong’s swirling winds.

Yuta speaks so softly that the storm tears it away before Doyoung can hear it, but he still sees the way Yuta’s eyes flash a brilliant gold before he sharply slams a splayed hand across Taeyong’s forehead.

Taeyong goes out like a light, his eyes rolling into the back of his head and the fight goes out of his body in a heartbeat. He slumps completely into Doyoung’s hold like a puppet without strings.

It’s not enough to put a stop to the storm, that will peter itself out slowly as the magic in the air dissipates. But the power feeding it and  _building it_  is gone.

Taeyong feels frail in Doyoung’s arms, and without the eye of the storm focusing around them, the rain starts to hit them hard until Yuta casts a shade overhead with shaking hands.

He steps forward and collapses down to his knees in the mud, reaching out again to help take some of Taeyong’s weight. Doyoung’s heart goes out to them both, aching for his friend but yearning for the man he loves, heartbroken for making him do something he does not want.

“Yuta – “ he murmurs, but Yuta doesn’t look up, keeping his attention solely on their friend.

“Not now, Dons,” Yuta says as he carefully brushes back Taeyong’s wet fringe.

The nickname is enough, it settles the roiling of Doyoung’s heart, and he settles a warm hand against Yuta’s back as he carefully helps to arrange Taeyong a little better.

“We need to get him back to the castle,” he says, if only to fill the painful silence between them while Taeyong’s storm keeps wailing above them.

*

The storm is already completely black overhead and the rain thick and cold as Johnny reaches the arches to the city proper and he finds himself joining the melee of city dwellers without much thought.

The Tempest, they call Taeyong, and now Johnny understands  _why._

This is the outpouring of Taeyong’s heart and Johnny knows he is at fault; he is the cause.

The town is a shambles.

Parents and their children are dragging their belongings back inside their homes as quickly as they can. Merchants pulling down their wares in a mixture of desperation and rage as the winds continue to pick up with almost every minute that passes and the Witch Guard and Johnny’s own soldiers are helping anyone who needs it.

The city is locking itself down to protect as much as it can from a storm that only seems to be growing.

Johnny is helping corral a frightened donkey, with the rain coming down like a sheet that is icy cold and harrowing, when he spots Jaehyun and Mark giving aid.

His pride is but a flicker against the onslaught of guilt he can barely swallow down as he struggles through the mud to help them.

“Johnny! What the fuck did you  _do_?” Jaehyun shouts over the sound of the chaos, dragging two terrified goats behind him.

Johnny doesn’t have an answer and instead holds the door open to the small shelter a harried older woman is pointing to.

The storm doesn’t seem to be letting up at all, and while Johnny can’t quite keep track of the time, from the skittish movements of the Witch Guard and the sheer  _number_  of the Witches themselves out in the city-proper, Johnny gets the feeling that perhaps  _this_  storm is worse than normal.

Johnny even spots Leeteuk in the square ordering a squadron of Witch Guard about with his eyes on the sky. Johnny wants to say something, but when he stops to let Jaehyun know where he’s going, he looks back to find Leeteuk already looking his way.

The expression on the older man’s face is enough to say he knows everything already.

Something changes then, something happens that causes the Witch to look sharply up towards the sky in fear, like he feels it before it happens as a sharp clap of thunder echoes overhead, rattling the glass panes of the entire city and sending most people to the ground with a cry of fear. It is so loud and powerful that Johnny’s ears are ringing when he scrambles back to his feet.

He is expecting orders, expecting questions, but when he turns around again he finds Leeteuk staring at the sky again, but the look on his face is strangely relieved.

The storm doesn’t end after that, but it lightens  _considerably_  and makes for protecting the township a far easier task.

Johnny hasn’t been able to feel his feet the whole time, and without the runes on his wrists he imagines his fingers would be feeling much the same.

The younger boys are awash with the giddy excitement of pure adrenaline and good work when they finally call it to an end, and Johnny can only stand back and watch as they all herd back into the castle.

Jaehyun takes everyone down to the communal hot springs, and even Kun looks relieved by the offer as they pry themselves out of their armour in the cold hallway of the Soldiers barracks.

Johnny, however, takes his chance to break away and heads upstairs, apologising to the poor castle staff as he treads mud and water through the halls.

He takes a short bath in his rooms and curls up in the window seat to watch out the last of the storm.

There is very little, however, to watch.

The city is dead, everyone locked away and quiet and the rain simply continues for hours, a tempered cascade that seems calm without the dangerous winds and building lightning of the afternoon.

Darkness has long taken hold before Johnny sees anyone at all and even Johnny is surprised when he recognises Yuta only by the scattering of starlight as he comes out of the Witch Heart during one of the smaller squalls. He stares as Yuta starts dispelling the last of the rain with crooked fingers and slumped shoulders. Even from a distance his expression is a mask that makes Johnny’s blood feel like ice.

He’s calling the last of the clouds away when Taeil and the smallest boy, Chenle, join him and start to blow runes out into the sky.

There is music in the air then, and a subtle warmth that chases the cold and sadness away.

But Johnny still feels remnants of it, which he feels is entirely fitting. After all it belongs to him, he caused it. There is an ache running through his entire body that has nothing to do with the hours he spent in the rain and mud helping thatch down the city against the storm.

He cannot swallow down the memories of Taeyong’s distraught expression or the fact that he turned himself away.

Stepped far out of Johnny’s reach.

And Johnny had let him because he was right.

Everything Taeyong had said was right.

*  
There are secrets the Witch Heart has kept safe for far longer than any of them have deserved. It feels right that his own is one she longer feels the need to hold close.

Still, it hurts.

“You completed the  _anchoring_   _ceremony_ , didn’t you? You fucking  _bound_  him to you,” Yuta says, his voice laced with something breakable.

Taeyong’s breath hitches where he is barely sitting upright, his magic still swirling like a vortex, locked inside his chest where it has stayed since Yuta and Doyoung dealt with him in the forest.

It takes him a moment to gather himself enough that he can even glance up at where Yuta is perched in the window seat.

The Heart might know what is best, but that still does not make him brave.

Doyoung had asked him that same thing once, when he had returned from the Wall for the first time, in the dead of night. He had been heartbroken and distraught, his magic untethered and chaotic, his control weak and his body struggling under the strain of it all.

It had felt painfully obvious what he had done, and he had waited for Leeteuk to scold him, to pull him aside and tear him apart for making such a foolish mistake. It had felt obvious since the moment Johnny left to begin with, but it had also been somehow bearable. Some semblance of stability built on the belief that ultimately Johnny would still take care of him. That their promises would keep, and he would be there when Taeyong needed him.

That he would be there like he promised he would be.

After all, it was only ever meant to be two years.

But the first and only time Johnny fulfilled their agreement to meet, had destroyed those last lingering pillars holding Taeyong strong, and he had been  _struggling_  when he returned home.

Doyoung had been, until this moment, the only one to have put the pieces together. The only one to have said anything at all. Questioned why Taeyong had fallen apart so cosmically after Johnny had gone to the wall.

It is, after all, such an ancient magic to have played with so carelessly.

“What gave it away?” he croaks with enough sarcasm that he doesn’t expect Yuta to answer at all.

After his breakdown in the clearing, after the storm that had been felt across almost the entire prefecture, the question is redundant.

And yet.

There is fire dancing in the reflection of Yuta’s eyes and Taeyong feels the burn of it far more than the icy cold of starlight.

“The kids did,” he says with an honesty that is entirely Yuta, and Taeyong feels a pang for asking so much of his friend. For  _taking_  so much from him.

Taeyong sighs and closes his eyes, ignoring the flare of jealousy he is so intimately familiar with whenever he sees Jeno and Jisung, scuttling in the wake of their Witches. 

“Donghyuck is infatuated with one of Kun’s boys. The tall one.”

“He’s  _sunkissed_ ,” Doyoung mutters darkly and Taeyong lets out a harsh laugh more rasp than humour as he sinks further into his swathe of blankets.

“There’s always a reason.”

“Then why didn’t you  _wait_?” Yuta asks.

He’s angry, there is betrayal in his voice more painful than the echoes of a storm in Taeyong’s chest. But his voice also cracks with the desperation to  _know_  and Taeyong hates his own silence.

Hates that he has kept this for five long years. That he has asked this lie of Doyoung, who settles on the seat next to Yuta and scatters starlight like cinders as he curls around him, tucking himself carefully into all the empty spaces Yuta gives him.

“Because I loved him,” Taeyong says like it matters now. Like it mattered then.

*

It takes nearly a week before Taeyong is seen again, and even then Johnny is not the one who does it.

Its Jaehyun who admits quietly that he had seen him join Jungwoo in the rose garden just after the Witches had scattered after dawn.

Johnny conveniently forgets to ask why Jaehyun was in the Witches rose garden, a private alcove he knows only has access from the Witches personal apartments.

Either that or Jungwoo knows about the secluded spot between two of the cherry trees along the eastern wall that can be used as a very quick ladder; a spot Johnny used to use whenever he had been banned from the Witches private wing.

With time, the more communal dinners have trailed off with the excitement of newcomers at the Witch Heart and many of the older Witches have been taking their meals privately. But it is clearly an excuse both Hyuck and Jaemin are tired of feeding Johnny when even Doyoung and Yuta’s absence becomes notable.

Johnny has seen neither of them since the storm, and he doesn’t expect Taeyong to be the first of the three he does. Nor is he expecting him to be alone when he does.

But it’s late by Witching standards and Taeyong isn’t alone at breakfast at all. Though instead of being flanked by his two childhood friends, the kids seem to be determined to absorb as much of Taeyong’s attention as possible.

Donghyuck even has his arms wrapped around Taeyong’s waist when Johnny enters the dining hall and doesn’t let up much the whole time Johnny eats save to shoot Johnny a death glare or two.

Chenle and Jaemin keep swapping out different parts of Taeyong’s breakfast with new ones for him to try, and Johnny is loath to interrupt them. Especially given the way they all seem so relaxed and calm and  _happy,_  something he’s begun to notice has been missing these last few days.

Especially since Taeyong also looks a little wan compared to the last time Johnny saw him, and there is a darkness under his eyes that Johnny is particularly familiar with.

He hasn’t been sleeping well either.

But seeing Taeyong out and about again soothes the ache in his chest and he is willing to take at least this much until he gets another chance to talk.

Because they need it.

*

Like anything in the Witch Heart, the magic always takes precedence, and despite his determination he doesn’t get a chance to see Taeyong again for several days outside of the breakfast table and this is not a conversation he wants to have in the open. Not again.

In the end he is forced to seek him out directly but even knocking on the door to Taeyong’s personal rooms Johnny is still not entirely expecting an answer.

But the Sun is shining on him today. Or she is trying.

Taeyong’s expression is pinched when he cracks open his door and sees him.

“Can we talk?” Johnny asks, still expecting to be turned away, and then Taeyong nods, letting him in and closing the door behind them and Johnny finds himself on uneven ground.

But Taeyong looks better than he did days ago at breakfast, and while Taeyong is not frail, he has always seemed small for the powers inside of him.

Now that feeling has only multiplied.

Seeing the capacity of Taeyong’s storms, Johnny feels suddenly wary in his presence, because this are the weight of Johnny’s consequences. These questions and emotions are all his to bear.

“Are you alright?” he asks, because it has only been rumours between the castle staff that Johnny knows anything of what happened after Taeyong disappeared.

Johnny only knows the sorrow in Taeyong’s eyes and the heartbreak in his storm after Johnny told him the truth, and well, he needs comfort that Taeyong is okay. He needs absolution.

“I’m… well,” Taeyong concedes, and Johnny tries to ignore the hesitation in his answer just as much as Taeyong tries to pretend it is not there.

“I was worried, after. The kids said you were ill.”

Taeyong’s expression pinches and he looks away.

“I allowed my magic to get the better of me. It was an outlier, but one I regret. I have much to atone for after the damage I caused in the city.”

“They will forgive you.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but there is more required than simple forgiveness when they know these things will only happen again.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny offers but it’s immediately rebuked.

“Do not, Commander. I do not want it.”

“Then what do you want?”

It is as if no one has actually asked him that question in far too long, Johnny thinks, as he watches the conflict flutter across Taeyong’s expression.

“ _Peace_ ,” he says, and Johnny knows he does not simply mean an end to the war.

There is too much chaos in Taeyong that Johnny does not remember, too much untapped, righteous power that was not there in the pink-haired boy of Johnny’s memories.

He had been heartbroken when Johnny had been called to fight. He had been desperate and angry against Heechul and Siwon and Leeteuk but once Johnny had accepted his place there had been no recall. Taeyong had been powerless against it, something that had been a painful lesson to a boy who had known nothing but power all his life.

Taeyong had known privilege, he had been a Child  _born_  of the Witch Heart, raised on her grounds since he was in swaddling. He carried magic with him everywhere and the people loved him. His smile had been joyous, and in his heart he carried the magic of summer rain.

The Witch Heart had never known the rage of anything like Taeyong’s most recent storm in all of Johnny’s life here. There had been misery in the air all day and it had stayed in the puddles despite the earnest attempts to cleanse it by the others.

And now the city knows how to react, knows what to do in order to protect what is theirs, and Johnny has to wonder how stable Taeyong is at all.

“What happened to you, Taeyong?” Johnny asks, desolately. He is more afraid of the answer than being turned away.

Taeyong doesn’t answer for a long moment.

“You left,” he finally says, bitterly. “And then you made a fool of me for believing you would come back.”

“That wasn’t my intention,” Johnny replies.

“Intentions mean nothing. Surely you cannot be so ignorant to think I would have surrendered all that we had after one conversation. That you could tell me to go and forget twenty years of love for you in a single night. That you could spend five years gone and then return expecting a welcome homecoming. I loved you, Youngho. You were everything to me; and being afraid should have pulled you closer. You should have respected me enough not to simply  _throw me away.”_

“It is not always that simple. I was not rational, Taeyong. You know nothing of the wall. Of the scrums.”

“But I know  _you!_ I loved you! I was willing to do  _anything_  to keep you safe and I thought surely that is something you would have known,” Taeyong says, indignant and resolute.

“I did. I knew it. But you were my one precious thing, Taeyong. I went to the wall and lost everything; you were the one single good thing left and I could not allow that to change. I did it to protect you.”

“I did not need protecting! Not from you!”

Something in Johnny breaks then, his ribcage feeling like sharp edges and mismatched pieces as he breathes around his own anger, because Taeyong’s outrage does not matter, not when he clearly doesn’t _understand_.

“I was the  _only_  thing you needed protecting from!” he snarls, teeth shredding through secrets he has kept close for almost five years. “I was in so over my head I was drowning! I thought I was going to  _die_ every single day. I thought there was no chance at all I was _ever_ going to come back to you. So, I gave you the one thing I could, the one thing you deserved: your freedom. I couldn’t drag you down with me into the mud and vermin. I refused to do that to you.”

“You think I didn’t know that? Do you think I didn’t watch you walk away to slaughter knowing that it was the last time I was going to see you? Because I knew, Youngho! I knew! And I was  _terrified_! I - “ Taeyong cuts himself off, voice breaking as he chokes on the words. His hands are trembling as he turns away, pressing them over his mouth. He breathes in shakily and then out in a long slow breath as he collects himself.

When he turns around his eyes are red, and his face is pale, but Johnny finds himself looking at the calm smooth expression of a Witch Prince.

“Too much has changed, Commander. I am not the boy you left in that clearing. I cannot be. You may be here; you may have returned to White Stone, but you cannot return to me.”

He sounds convincing, and Johnny is sure to anyone else he would be. But despite all their years apart, Johnny knows him. They grew up together, hand in hand; two parts of a single whole and this bravado is the same one he has used himself.

“You told me in the clearing that you wish you didn’t care. But you do. You still care, Taeyong, and so do I.”

“ _Caring_  is not enough,” Taeyong rebukes, but Johnny is persistent, he knows he has to be.

“It can be.”

“But it is  _not.”_

“Then why won’t you say my name?” he asks and Taeyong’s eyes go round and wide before he looks away sharply, lips pursed in what is only a familiar pout and Johnny smiles, feeling something warm and familiar for the first time.

“I have.”

“You haven’t. I’m never Youngho. Not to you.”

“Things change,” Taeyong spits.

“Then why won’t you say it? I want you to call me like you did. I still want to be Johnny.”

“You cannot always have what you want,” Taeyong says, petty and angry and Johnny somehow just wants to smile. Because this is it. This is the crack he needs.

“You can tell me you hate me all you desire, but I don’t believe you,” he says and watches the careful way Taeyong fights himself, his emotions flittering through wide dark eyes but resolutely hidden behind an otherwise calm mask.

“Please go.”

It’s not the words either of them are expecting, Taeyong struggling to hide his own surprise as he squares his shoulders and tries to stand firm but it only lasts a moment as Johnny takes a step closer towards him.

“Taeyong – “ he says as he closes the gap between them and once again Taeyong steps backwards out of his reach.

“You need to leave,” Taeyong says, firmly.

“Say my name and I’ll go,” Johnny replies. It’s a foolish promise because he knows the  _moment_  he hears the way Taeyong murmurs his name he won’t be able to leave. Every memory that has kept him alive on the front will keep him locked here in Taeyong’s rooms, at Taeyong’s  _feet_  if he’ll let him.

“I told you to leave, Commander,” Taeyong says again, moving towards the door.

Johnny moves on instinct and reaches out, wrapping his fingers around Taeyong’s wrist.

Taeyong gasps as Johnny pulls him back around to face him and Johnny ignores the way his skin burns at the touch of his metal vambrace, a familiar magic that is hot when it should be cold, that burns in a way it never once done before.

“Let me go,” Taeyong says, staring down at Johnny’s grip on him.

“No,” Johnny replies, the word escaping before his brain can comprehend what he is really doing.

It’s treason, after all – to touch the royal line without their consent.

Taeyong peers up at him through his hair, his mouth set in an open-mouthed cry and Johnny has to hold himself firm from the urge to kiss it away.

“Back away, Commander,” Taeyong says quietly.

“No,” he says again and takes another step forward until Taeyong’s back is pressed right up against the door. The glassware on the cupboard next to them rattles with the vibration of it and the whole world seems painfully far away.

 “Say my name,” he asks.

“I gave you an order, if you do not release me – “ Taeyong starts, voice louder than before.

Johnny crowds him further, bracing himself against the wall just to the side of Taeyong’s head, the other hand still holding Taeyong’s wrist firm.

Taeyong doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t waver, his eyes are round and dark and Johnny loves him.

He has always loved him.

“Say my name, Taeyong,” he says quietly with none of the bravado that Taeyong used to like. That used to draw him in each and every time, just a low murmur as he pulls desperately at the one single string he has. This one vulnerability that Taeyong is trying to keep out of his hands.

Taeyong swallows, his lips caught between his teeth as his gaze inadvertently falls to Johnny’s lips.

It’s a flicker, nothing more, but Johnny feels the moment it all changes and he takes it.

He leans down and presses his mouth to Taeyong’s in a bruising kiss that Taeyong accepts like a drowning man, his hand reaching up the back of Johnny’s neck to hold him in place.

The first kiss is desperate and burns the exact same way Taeyong’s touch did. But he tastes like Johnny remembers, he tastes like  _home_  and Johnny chases the feeling deeper, kissing  _Taeyong_  deeper. They only pull back to breathe, gasping for air and all Johnny wants is to do it again. To die kissing Taeyong would be such a heavenly way to die.

“Say my name,” Johnny murmurs again and moves forward to chase the answer off Taeyong’s tongue before he can utter it.

There are guards just a dozen metres down the corridor, but Taeyong does not call for them, instead he looks at Johnny like his heart is breaking and before Johnny can say anything, Taeyong shoves him backwards, hard enough he slams against the couch far behind them.

The blow is half magic, half Taeyong. It is a cold wind, icy and impeding and the air locks itself inside Johnny’s lungs as the furniture stops his trajectory. Swirling inside his rib cage like a building tornado with no escape.

Taeyong’s hand is outstretched, his eyes wide and there is a panic there that Johnny has never seen.

His heart drops like it’s made of stone.

“Taeyong – “ he croaks, an apology on his tongue, but Taeyong does not want it. His breath hitches and Johnny knows him well enough to recognise the panic, the distress he has caused.

He tries again to say the words, apologise, but there is no air in his lungs, no air in the room. Instead it is a building maelstrom outside and the windows rattle for a long moment before Taeyong turns and scarpers out of the room.

It is only when the door slams shut behind him that Johnny can breathe again and he gulps in an enormous lungful of air, trying to feel the tingling tips of his fingers before he pushes himself to his feet to give chase.

But the corridor is empty when he stumbles from the room and the world only stops spinning when Johnny finds his way outside and feels the sun burning on the back of his neck and a cold wind coming in from the south.

*

The rumours reach Johnny before he sees it for himself.

There are days where gossip seems to travel faster than sunshine and today feels like one such day.

The younger witches are sullen and quick to complain as they slouch all over the training area. Even Xuxi’s flexing does little to lift Donghyuck’s mood and Jeno doesn’t bother training at all, simply perching on Renjun’s blanket and letting Jaemin slump all over him like a cat.

Johnny only watches from a distance, trying in vain to work out the underlying guilt through every set of training drills he can remember. Even Jaehyun gives up on helping him through them before lunch.

Mark is kind enough to at least try and tell Johnny what he knows when Johnny has stopped hitting things long enough to shove his head in the water trough. Johnny knows more than enough of the Witch Heart to understand things better than Mark can explain them, but he appreciates the young lieutenant’s kindness. Especially since Mark still doesn’t quite understand Johnny’s history here or the importance of the Witch Guard.

The magic has soured, Mark says, and it’s making the entire Witch Heart feel wrong.

Which is something Johnny is familiar with. It’s not something that even Taeyong is capable of alone, unsettling the entirety of the coven. But if more than one Witch is unsettled it can spread.

The kids spend most of their time outside trying to escape the power of the Heart, especially Renjun and Jaemin whose powers are easily amplified, trying to feel better.

It doesn’t take much for Johnny to know that Taeyong has clearly told Yuta and Doyoung about the kiss, and the three of them are powerful enough to cause the souring.

With Taemin and Jongin both called to the Black City with their brethren, the balance is definitely in favour of Johnny’s old friends, and without a Witch Guard to anchor any one of them, their discontent is almost tangible to those even without runes.

Even he hasn’t slept in days, the runes along his wrists writhing almost constantly. Its enough to give him a headache that lingers like a burning ember. He can’t imagine what it’s been like for the witches.

It takes three days before any of the older members of the coven are seen outside of the Heart and even Johnny isn’t prepared when he enters the dining hall to find both Taeyong and Yuta sitting in their normal places, but also Doyoung sitting  _far_   _away_  from his usual spot at the communal table. Instead, Doyoung is tucked away at the other end of the High table, with Jungwoo and Taeil.

Worse still is that Yuta’s blonde hair is gone, replaced by a piercing auburn and Taeyong’s is a shock of snakes-belly red. His eyes sharp and brows furrowed the moment he sees Johnny at the entrance.

“Oh my god, you broke them. Johnny what the fuck did you do?” Jaehyun gapes, smacking Johnny in the arm as they linger near the entrance and Johnny genuinely doesn’t know if he should attempt to take his seat or run.

“I kissed him,” he says simply, and makes his choice to keep walking towards his seat even though he’s not sure if he’s going to be able to eat anything at all today either.

“Oh fucking –  _Johnny!”_  Jaehyun whisper-shouts giving chase.

“Since when?”

“Four days ago.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because he stopped me.”

When Johnny glances over Jaehyun is looking at him with the familiar disgust of a well-loved friend.

“If Yuta tries to  _scalp you_  I have no idea if I want to stop him or help at this point.”

“Either is appropriate,” Johnny muses.

“Johnny, I think we are well past the point of keeping secrets. You need to tell me what is going on here because something is going to happen if you don’t.”

So, Johnny does. He tells Jaehyun everything, sitting along the brook where the water disappears into the fell gates, out of the gaze of even the sun.

It’s cold, sitting in the shadow of the Neo City, and while the water gurgles at them merrily Johnny doesn’t feel any of her power. Without Sicheng here at the Witch Heart the water magic is quiet.

But she listens, just as intently as Jaehyun does.

And Johnny feels better for it.

“There’s something missing here, Johnny,” he says, eventually, and Johnny hums because he’s felt the same thing.

There is something Taeyong is refusing to say, some piece Johnny is missing.

“He’s holding me back from something and I don’t know if I want to know what it is.”

“But can you live without it? Look – hyung, you came back here for him. It’s always been him, there  _is_  no other. Kun is right, things are different; you  _both_  are different people, but you owe it to yourself, and to him, to clear the air. You need answers, Johnny. Both of you do. He wouldn’t make storms like he did if he didn’t feel anything. Jungwoo said he was bedridden for three days when Yuta and Doyoung brought him back. He might be angry now, but give it time. Take your time, forgiveness isn’t any easier just because you’re here. If anything, it’s going to be  _harder.”_

*

Jaehyun is right.

Patience is a virtue Johnny believed he knew well.

The Wall had taught him facets of it, different echoes of its value.

But waiting out the anger of the three Witches is hard. Worst of all because he knows it isn’t misplaced.

Johnny spends over a week walking on glass around the entire Witch Heart until news comes in from the Black City that those on the wall are calling once again for reinforcements.

The whole Neo City is awash with the melancholy of the war effort in the space of the morning, not least of all influenced by Donghyuck’s heartbreak over having to say goodbye to Xuxi.

It is not the first time that the call has been made since Johnny’s own conscription ended, and while this is not quite as desperate, the call is  _not_  conscription, it is an earnest call for aid.

And there is nothing the young and eager are worse at ignoring than a call to arms. Johnny himself is proof of that.

Kun is the first to receive the news, when the ravens had come in the night before. Johnny feels like one of the last and that alone means that Yunho is at least allowing him the choice whether to go or stay. He had spent three years at the wall with a title he felt he did not entirely own, searching for a replacement.

Kun is everything Johnny had been waiting for, his strength and resilience are testaments to the power of the soldiers themselves and not the other way around. He loves his men as Johnny did, and is strong enough to fight for them in any way he can.

Johnny is proud of his choice, but he is unhappy at having to say goodbye so quickly.

It has always been inevitable, but after nearly a year with Kun at his back Johnny already feels the empty space.

The boys are quiet too, as the contingent returning to the wall start gathering themselves ready for the march back.

When he emerges from the barracks the last person Johnny expects to find is Doyoung, looking tired and sallow in the grey light.

The sun hasn’t been seen since Donghyuck heard the news.

“Doyoung,” Johnny says with an equally formal bow of his head. Something he never thought he would give any of those he had once called friends.

But there is a tension between them since Taeyong’s storm that Johnny feels painfully, though clearly far less than Doyoung and Yuta.

“Commander Seo,” Doyoung says, voice rasping, and he coughs awkwardly to clear his throat. Gaze drifting behind Johnny to the open door of the soldiers’ barracks where shouting can be heard from those still packing.

“I told you once that it is my duty to protect everyone here, and so it would be ill conceived of me if I did not ask you to at least say goodbye to him in person,” Doyoung says. “He is angry, and lost, but he will need you to say goodbye this time.”

It was only as the Witch stumbles away quickly that Johnny realises with a sinking stomach that Taeyong thinks he is going too.

Taeyong thinks he is  _leaving._

He turns back to the castle and makes a mad dash towards the witches’ apartments, pushing past even Guard-Captain Siwon on his way into the castle proper like there are hounds on his heels.

He’s out of breath by the time he reaches Taeyong’s rooms at the top of the Witches wing, and his heart is thumping painfully in his chest as he pounds heavily against the door.

It takes several long and precious moments before the doors crack open and he sees the shock on Taeyong’s face as he recognises him.

“What are you doing here?” Taeyong asks after a moment to collect himself, brow furrowing in an attempt at pulling himself back.

Johnny doesn’t let him, wedging his boot between the door and the wall to at least make an attempt at stopping him from closing it.

But he doesn’t think he will.

Regardless of Doyoung’s message or not.

“Can we talk?” he asks softly, and Taeyong hesitates, a long drawn out minute of worry, before finally nodding and allowing the door to fall easily into Johnny’s grasp. Allowing Johnny to enter of his own volition.

It is a specific choice that Johnny doesn’t let pass him by.

It matters very little once he closes the door behind himself and turns to look at Taeyong properly and he stutters to a stop. Taeyong’s hair is black in place of the red and gone is his armour of stormlight and scales or the hardened black coats he’s taken to wearing. Instead he is dressed entirely in white, most strikingly in a sheer blouse that makes him look soft and delicate as it collects around his wrists and cinched around his waist. The halter-neck he is wearing underneath draws Johnny’s eyes for him, accentuating the long lines of his smooth shoulders and collarbone and guiding his gaze down towards the small of his back.

Johnny’s mouth feels dry, and all the words he has been carefully collecting since the last time they spoke disappear as Taeyong finally looks at him. His hair pitch black and softly scattering over his forehead, eyes dark and round as they stare at him with a wounded glimmer that Johnny hates so, so much.

He is holding himself too far away, too tightly when it should be the opposite.

Johnny was the only one who ever saw him free, who saw him unbound and entirely himself.

That Taeyong is holding himself back from  _him_  hurts Johnny more than anything else.

“I’m not leaving,” he says before anything else can be said and tries valiantly not to flush red in embarrassment.

Taeyong opens his mouth to say something and then loses it, looking a little foolish for a moment.

“What?”

“I’m not going back to the Wall. The call for arms, going through the city. I mean, I could, if you don’t want me here. If you would prefer I leave, indefinitely, then perhaps I would eventually go back. But not right away.”

“Surely a commander must return with his soldiers,” Taeyong croaks.

Johnny nods.

“He will, just… not me. It’s not me, anymore. The King gave me the chance to find my own replacement and it took much longer than I ever thought, but I did. It’s why I’m back here, like I promised.”

For a moment Taeyong looks furious.

“You expect me to believe – “

“It’s Kun. My replacement, I mean. Kun is taking command at the Wall. He’s been organising things for months, he even got word that Yunho agreed to give him several Witches like he asked.”

He can see the confusion chasing its way through Taeyong’s brain and he takes a nervous step further into the room. A step closer to Taeyong, who doesn’t flinch away.

“I know there are a thousand things I got wrong in all of this,” he says, trying to stay calm, keep his voice even. “But this is not one of them. I’m  _here_ , Taeyong. I came back, and I know I keep getting things wrong, but unless  _you_  tell me to leave again then I’m going to stay. Because you are the only one who can make me go anywhere anymore. I swear to you.”

“Do not – “ Taeyong starts and then cuts himself off and Johnny watches as he fights to collect himself, to put the words together in the right order.

“Please do not swear things to me you cannot abide by,” he says, and Johnny’s heart breaks as he hears the tremulous wobble in Taeyong’s voice.

“But I can. I wear this uniform because I earned it, Taeyong, but I am commander now only in word. The soldiers are Kun’s, the  _boys_  are Kun’s. And I am yours, just as I was when we were children, just like I swore to you a thousand times over. I know I failed you five years ago, but I refuse to do it again now. I am yours, Taeyong; I have always been yours.”

“But you have not been  _here_. You were not here when I needed you, Joh-”

Again, he cuts himself off, and Johnny closes his eyes to the sounds of his name snapping off the end of Taeyong’s tongue.

“I know. I  _know._  I was wrong that day. I was wrong when I told you it would be better, but I was afraid. I truly, honestly believed you would be better without me, that regardless of what I wanted I would not escape the wall alive. I haven’t been okay, Taeyong. I have missed you, incredibly, every single day. I have woken up counting the days since I left. And from the moment I was given my orders I have counted the days until I could be back here. With you.”

“Please do not say that. Do not give me something and then take it away again. Please don’t lie to me anymore, I cannot stand it,” Taeyong says, wringing his hands together as he fights to keep his composure, eddying swirls of wind starting to curl around his fingers and all Johnny wants is to take them in his own and press kissed to every finger until his heart calms.

“I won’t. I’m  _not._  I swear, Taeyong. I swear to you. The absolute truth. I’m yours. I have  _always_  been yours,” he says, taking another gentle step closer.

“I needed you,” Taeyong admits quietly. “No one else. It has never, ever been anyone else.”

“I know,” Johnny says and Taeyong shakes his head.

“No, you don’t  _understand,_ ” he says, desperately, and the coils of wind spin faster, knotting themselves around his fingertips. “I am so selfish, Johnny, so selfish. You were right; I need you,  _all_  of you, or none at all, and it would have been okay. It should have been okay. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been so  _selfish.”_

“You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever known – “ Johnny murmurs, and Taeyong shakes him off, steps back again.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I was so afraid, Johnny. You were leaving and I couldn’t protect you. I looked into your future and it was  _empty_. I was  _blind_  to you for the first time in my life and I was so scared. I did everything I could do keep you safe. I gave up parts of myself to keep you alive and the first time I saw you again you broke my heart and I – “

_He’s holding me back from something, I’m just not sure if I want to know what it is._

Jaehyun’s words next to the brook come back to him in a moment and it’s like a flash of lightning cracks the air as Johnny realises for the first time what has been in front of him all along.

 “You started a Binding.”

Taeyong’s tirade cuts off, the words strangling themselves in his throat and he goes impossibly still.

“You started a binding,” Johnny repeats. This time knowing he’s right. This time saying the words for himself, for the truth to hang in the air properly. 

“I did,” Taeyong replies, softly, terribly and Johnny’s heart _lurches_.

“You didn’t finish it. You can’t have because I’d  _know_ , I would have felt it,” Johnny says, stumbling over his words because it’s an impossible thing. It  _must_  be an impossible thing because he would  _know_ , he would know if Taeyong had bound them together like they were always supposed to be.

Taeyong’s expression is heartbreaking.

“No. I did. I finished it. I completed it the morning you left for the Wall.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You were closed to me,” Taeyong says, tears glistening in his eyes. “It failed because you left. And when I went to you, like I promised I would, you – “

“I sent you home,” Johnny croaks.

And he remembers doing it. He remembers how different Taeyong had been, how brittle and exhausted, and instead of bringing him close like Taeyong needed, he had turned him away.

He had sent him home, believing it would be better.

The right thing to do.

Taeyong must see the dawning horror on his face because his voice somehow softens even more.

“It wasn’t your fault, Johnny. None of this was ever your fault. And I’m sorry I’ve made you believe otherwise. Whatever we had when we were children is gone. I’ve known that for a long time now, I simply had to let it go. I have made amends with it. But I am bound by the choices I made, and I will… always be ruined by this. The choice was mine and mine alone, and I took that decision from you out of desperation and I am so eternally sorry for that. But I am suffering my consequences for it.”

“Can Leeteuk not… “ he asks, voice catching in his throat at the sad little shake of Taeyong’s head.

“He doesn’t know. Or if he does, he pretends otherwise. Boah too. There would be a trial otherwise. Binding is old magic and not to be toyed with.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Johnny murmurs, taking a step closer and watches as panic climbs its way back across Taeyong’s face and once again he scarpers further across the room.

“Because it was for the best. You said it yourself, over and over again the day you left and again, at the Wall. It will do less harm if we simply let it go. So, I tried. I tried to let it go. Until you came back here, and nothing had changed.”

And Johnny had believed everything _would_ change.

He had believed so wholeheartedly that he would not return from the Wall, and seeing Taeyong so hollowed out that first time, just months after he had left, had been the moment he had defined his choice.

Taeyong had been suffering and it had been needless.

Taeyong would not have to mourn if the wounds were already healed.

So, he had cut those last threads holding them close, not knowing what they had been. Not knowing what Taeyong had  _done_  in his desperation to keep Johnny alive.

“It’s been hurting you. It’s been hurting you all this time,” he croaks and Taeyong offers him a sad smile.

“And that is my punishment, Johnny. I’m glad it failed, because if it didn’t then the distance would have torn you apart and you would not have known why. I tried to take something that should only ever be offered freely and I will be spend all my days asking your forgiveness for that.”

Johnny opens his mouth to reply but for the first time he’s speechless, the words looping around his brain like the whirlwinds around Taeyong’s fingers.

He isn’t angry, and perhaps he should be.

 

But this was always their future. This was the future Johnny set aside when he accepted his conscription, when he told Heechul to leave it be, that he would do his duty like the law required.

But he had left the Neo City believing he would return to Taeyong, and when he did, they would carry on. He would stand at Taeyong’s back as his Witch Guard, and with their binding they would grow stronger together. He would anchor Taeyong and he would protect him and that would be only the beginning of their lives together.

It had been their future for nearly twenty years before anything changed.

And so as he searches deep for some way to react there is no anger waiting for him, only the regret that Taeyong had stayed quiet. The heartache that he had tried to bind them quietly and alone. That he had been so afraid of Johnny’s future that he had tried to link Johnny to himself in order to contradict it.

“I would have done it. If you’d told me, I would have done it,” he says, the words escaping before he finishes the thoughts. An honest truth from the very heart of him.

“I know,” Taeyong says, sadly. “But I didn’t ask. I couldn’t. In the end this was my decision alone and so the consequences are mine as well. The only thing I would ask of you is that you leave it be. That you let me go, just as I let you. Donghyuck sees your future now, the cards aren’t empty anymore. You’re  _safe_ , and that is all I can ask of the Sun, I am happy to live in storms for the rest of my life for it. But you’re right, I cannot have you here. I cannot bear to see you every day and feel my magic reach for you and find nothing. It will kill me, Johnny. And I will destroy everyone around me doing it.”

“No. No, I cannot. I refuse to allow you – “ Johnny says, striding forward.

Taeyong tries to scamper backwards again, but there is little room for him to go and he is backed up against the wall in only a few steps. But while he seems small and vulnerable in his white silk and wide eyes there is still the irrevocable strength in him that Johnny has known all his life.

“You _allow_ nothing. I did this to myself, Youngho! Seeing you again only proves how foolish I was, how unstable I am.”

“Then let us help you! Let your friends  _help you!_ ”

“You think they have not tried? Doyoung has spent five years helping me and it has come to nothing!” Taeyong spits, pushing Johnny in the chest, hard, trying to shove him away but he isn’t really trying, and Johnny is tired of being pushed away.

“Doyoung is not the only one who loves you,” Johnny snarls and grabs Taeyong’s arm to stop him trying again.

The feeling is immediate, a sharp _burst_ of magic that is vibrant and cold, scattering down Johnny’s arm like the scattering of fresh snow.

His anger and frustration die immediately as he looks down at where his hand is wrapped around the silk cuff of Taeyong’s wrist, where his thumb and forefinger rest just shy of the crisp fabric and are pressed against bare skin.

Taeyong’s eyes are wide, his expression open, surprise curling his lips in slack-mouthed shock as he too stares at where Johnny has him in his grasp.

Neither one of them moves until Johnny holds his breath and summons his courage, gently loosening his grip to slide another finger under the crisp curl of silk to press against the soft, bare skin.

The feeling flutters again, a tingling rush that runs down his spine.

He can see Taeyong feels it too, his shock merging into something closer to tears and Johnny slowly brings their hands down between them and guides his other hand between the spaces in Taeyong’s fingers, closing his hand tightly.

The magic builds again, and its cold but not wrong. It is the cold of a bubbling brook. Of a scattering fresh snowfall, an overflow of early morning rain, a cool late-night wind.

“I – “ Taeyong gasps, his eyes are glassy with unshed tears as he stares down at their linked hands.

“Hush,” Johnny whispers, letting go of Taeyong’s wrist and slowly bringing his hand up to curl around the back of Taeyong’s neck to steady him.

His skin is warm, and he’s trembling, but the magic is beyond all of it. The magic just builds again, sparking between them as they finally touch skin to skin for the first time in five years, open and unbound of their secrets.

Johnny feels like he is seventeen years old again, caught in a summer storm with the most beautiful boy he’s ever known. He feels like he’s eleven years old watching lightning light up the sky at four in the morning or like he’s enveloped in an early dawn breeze. He feels like the joy of spring showers scattering through cherry blossoms and the smell of fresh earth after rain.

 “Can I kiss you?” Johnny asks and Taeyong nods, quickly, a dozen times.

“Yes.  _Yes_ ,” he says.

He knows what this means. They both know what this means. Taeyong’s magic is an old familiar thing, and Johnny can _feel_ it, feel it pulling at him to reform a link that had started five years ago and remained untethered ever since. 

There are tears on Taeyong’s lips when Johnny kisses him.

But the feeling is lost against the rush of magic that runs through him. It is sharp and cold and still  _so alive_ but Taeyong is startingly warm under Johnny’s fingers and he anchors Johnny through what feels like drowning for a moment. His whole body feeling overwhelmingly powerful as Taeyong’s magic runs through him, and that link is all he needs to feel sane in the heart of it. The only thing linking him back to earth again and that fact, that truth, that promise is enough for him to know the question Taeyong’s magic is asking of him.

And Johnny accepts it. He agrees, every facet of his body saying  _yes_ as he pulls Taeyong closer, as he reaches for more of him, more bare skin.

Taeyong’s lips are warm and soft and he mewls into the kiss as Johnny licks into his mouth, and the moment Taeyong reaches for him, pulling his fingers out of Johnny’s grasp to take a fistful of Johnny’s coat and pull him closer, closer, closer, it is almost enough to make Johnny’s heart burst.

Taeyong breaks their kiss to breathe deeply, letting his head fall back against the wall and the gentle flush to his skin is enough to set something alight in the pit of Johnny’s stomach. He crowds him further, stepping as close as he can and presses a kiss along the curve of Taeyong’s throat, enjoying the way he can feel when Taeyong swallows and he grins, biting gently at the sensitive skin and soothing each mark with his tongue.

Taeyong’s hand stays fisted in the back of Johnny’s hair and Johnny can’t help but grin each time he _pulls,_ like it’s a victory. Every whine and keen from Taeyong goes straight down his spine as he kisses his way over his collarbones, using his tongue to smear the sheer silk wet against Taeyong’s skin and nip at it again with his teeth.

Taeyong looks beautiful but Johnny just wants him bare, just wants to be able to press himself against Taeyong’s bare skin and feel the heady rush of Taeyong’s magic run through him.

He pulls at the hem of the outer shirt blindly, keen to get his hands on as much of Taeyong as possible. The silk is thin and sheer and catches in the metal of the jewelled belt around his waist and Johnny doesn’t care.

“Joh -  _Johnny_  – ” Taeyong whines as the silk tears, as he uses his strength to cut it straight up the centre, pulling at it until it falls away, leaving the white halterneck underneath and the thicker white cuffs around his wrists.

“I  _liked_  that,” Taeyong complains, but he does it reaching to pull Johnny back in close again and Johnny doesn’t feel an ounce of shame, smiling proudly as he kisses away Taeyong’s pout.

All Johnny wants then is Taeyong. He wants all of him, every single fragment. He wants strip him down, to take him apart, stretch him out and fill him up until they are nothing without the other. Bound, like they have always meant to be.

He reaches down and slides his hand under one of Taeyong’s thighs and Taeyong follows without a single hesitation, allowing Johnny to lift him high enough to wrap his legs around Johnny’s waist without breaking their kiss.

He is a familiar weight in Johnny’s arms and every part of bare skin touching is like a building storm.

It’s still not enough.

Johnny wants all of him.

He wants to be inside of him.

Taeyong’s rooms have not changed much since the last time Johnny had been in the Witch Heart. The bed is still enormous, and he appreciates its vastness now better than he ever did before, setting Taeyong down with as much gentleness as Taeyong will allow.

“This is unfair,” Taeyong whines, peering up at Johnny from the bed and Johnny chuckles, letting the Witch pull at the full ceremonial garb he’s still wearing.

Taeyong already looks debauched, his lips red and kiss-swollen, eyes dark and glassy as he pulls at Johnny’s belt and scabbard. Taeyong himself isn’t naked either, the halterneck still intact and his wrists wrapped in the remnants of the outer layer’s cuffs.

Johnny tosses his jacket aside and pulls his undershirt up and over his head to follow it, but when he looks back Taeyong is staring, his fingers shaking gently as they hover over a long, jagged scar across his abdomen, just one of the dozens scattered all over him.

He reaches down and with gentle fingers guides Taeyong’s head back so he can look up at him.

“Eyes on me, kitten,” he says leaning down to kiss Taeyong gently and Taeyong nods.

His gaze pulls away from Johnny’s scars and follows intimately as Johnny undoes his trousers. Johnny feels giddy arousal under the intense scrutiny, and he takes his half-hard cock in hand and gently tugs two long strokes as he looms once again over Taeyong.

The witch is still perched on the bed, his eyes dark with lust as he watches, his mouth slack and Johnny smirks.

“Eyes on me, love,” he says leaning down to catch Taeyong’s mouth in another kiss, licking into his mouth as he looms over him and pushes him back down onto the bed.

The press of this much bare skin on skin is enough that Johnny feels like he’s drowning in the rush of magic, the air is burning with it, his body is alight, but even that pales in comparison to the feeling of Taeyong pulling him close, grabbing at him as if he is trying to take in all of him at once.

Taeyong crawls backwards until all of him is up on the mattress and Johnny looms over him, knees either side as he kisses him deeply.

Taeyong is gasping again as he breaks away, and once again Johnny turns his attention to kissing his way downwards. He can feel Taeyong’s heart pounding as he suckles a hickey against the fragile skin of his pulsepoint, nipping at the unblemished skin of his throat

Taeyong’s breath stutters and hitches as Johnny bites at the exposed skin of his collarbones and chest and he grins as he works his way down, brushing aside the silk halterneck to take a dark nipple into his mouth.

Taeyong’s moan is  _exquisite_ , and he clenches his fingers tight in Johnny’s hair and the pain makes him grin as he swirls it around his tongue, moving from one to the other until Taeyong is a writhing mess.  

“En-enough,” Taeyong complains, pushing at him blindly in a bid for him to go lower, and Johnny chuckles, crawling down only far enough to turn his attention to the buttons at the front of the halterneck. He takes the first one between his teeth and starts to pull them open. Several of them break away and Taeyong whines petulantly at the destruction until Johnny starts pressing a kiss to each centimetre of bare skin he uncovers.

Taeyong is whining and twitching again as Johnny nuzzles into the bare skin of his abdomen, chasing the trail of dark hair down to where it disappears into his trousers. Taeyong’s cock is straining against the laces and he moans shamelessly as Johnny palms against it.

Johnny’s own dick is hard between the open folds of his trousers and he strokes the full length once again, before divesting Taeyong of the last of his clothes.

“Do you have oil?” he asks, teasingly brushing his fingers up the inside of Taeyong’s long legs, watching in satisfaction as the Witch shudders and nods, biting down on his bottom lip as he tries his best to hold himself together.

“Bottom drawer,” he croaks and Johnny grins, pointedly ignoring Taeyong’s straining cock as he stands up and struts over to the drawers in question.

It isn’t hard to find; a familiar vial Johnny remembers well.

He removes his boots one by one and slowly divests himself out of his trousers, feeling Taeyong’s gaze dark and heavy on his every move and he is smirking when he turns back to the bed, crawling back up over Taeyong to steal the air from his lungs in a long drawn-out kiss.

The rush of magic that runs through him is almost immediate as he presses himself against Taeyong. It is almost overwhelming and he gasps around the intense feeling, pressing his face into the crook of Taeyong’s neck as he fights to catch his breath.

Taeyong isn’t quite as affected, but there are still sparks scattering across Johnny’s back as Taeyong runs his hands over him, static electricity sparking against his nerves all of a sudden.

“Are you alright?” Taeyong asks, biting his lip and gently brushing Johnny’s jaw with a crooked finger as he stares, drinking him in.

“Yes,” Johnny huffs, brushing his fingers gently over the beautiful curve of Taeyong’s jaw. Johnny’s whole body is thrumming with magic but his entire universe is a beautiful boy he has missed with all of him.

And Taeyong seems to know. Seems to understand better than Johnny could ever say out loud.

“I need you, Johnny,” he murmurs, pressing the words into Johnny’s mouth between each kiss.

“I need you, Johnny, I need all of you.”

Johnny doesn’t answer him, doesn’t know what to say so instead he kisses him, collecting every shred of his broken promises and forgiveness into something whole again, something good. He kisses him until he sees stars, until his lips are tingling and his whole body feels alight with the building magic inside of them both.

Taeyong’s body is a memory. Johnny moves along each plane of it with a curious familiarity as he follows the lines of their history. He still shudders as Johnny teases along the skin of his abdomen, still whimpers as Johnny takes his dick in hand and strokes it long and slow as he settles down between his thighs.

The oil is cold to the touch as Johnny pours a generous amount over his fingers and he laughs as Taeyong whines again as he guides one of Taeyong’s legs up and lets it smear down towards Taeyong’s hole, but the whine chokes off into something else as Johnny presses a finger inside of him. The muscles flutter to accommodate the intrusion and Taeyong breathes out and gasps as Johnny starts to work him open, stretching the muscles slowly and once again Taeyong’s breathing quickens.

He is a writhing mess as Johnny adds another finger, pushing back against them. Taeyong’s skin is flushing a bright pink, his cock red and smearing precum against his abdomen.

It’s the most beautiful sight Johnny has seen in years.

“Please, please – “ Taeyong is crying, fingers clenching tight in the bedsheets.

“You’re so good, baby, so good,” Johnny croons and crooks his fingers, just a little, as he continues to work him open, and is immediately rewarded with a drawn-out moan that makes it hard not come undone.

“I need  _you_ ,” Taeyong complains and Johnny laughs.

It has been so long since they have done this, so long since Johnny knew Taeyong’s body, but he knows what Taeyong is capable of. Knows how much Taeyong loves the stretch, loves to take and take and it is no different as he works himself up.

His cock his aching as he smears it with more oil, watching as his fingers slide out of Taeyong’s hole obscenely, and he lines the head of his dick up and slowly presses in.

The first push is slow and Taeyong is trying hard not to tense up, muscles twitching, as his body tries to acclimatise to the stretch. It’s not as easy as it used to be, it has been far too long and Taeyong’s body has forgotten him. But Johnny is the one unprepared as he bottoms out, all of him buried deep in Taeyong and as he meets Taeyong’s dark-eyed gaze something white hot and powerful runs through him. His body shudders from the cold rush of magic and he gasps, pressing his forehead to the flush of bare skin over Taeyong’s heart.

“I would have always said yes to you,” he murmurs as he kisses the space under his lips. Taeyong’s chest is heaving and Johnny looks up into meet his gaze, Taeyong’s fingers gentle in his hair.

The air is ablaze all around them and Johnny doesn’t care for a single thing.

He knows what this means, knows what is happening but he doesn’t care.

“You will always have all of me.”

The look Taeyong offers him is vulnerable and open and Johnny hates to see that echo of all they’ve lost looking back at him. He pushes himself upright again, lifting Taeyong’s hips with him and the Witch gasps around the movement.

“Please, Johnny,” Taeyong says and there is nothing Johnny would deny him. Especially now he knows what this means.

He grinds his hips forward experimentally and enjoys the way Taeyong gasps around each little moan he makes, enjoys the gentle burn as Taeyong grasps at him, pulling as much of Johnny towards him, _inside_ him, as he can. The thrill is impossible, and he pulls his hips back a little before pushing back in with another slow glide that has the Witch gasping.

Taeyong’s body slowly relaxes around the stretch of Johnny’s cock and he starts grinding into him, building the pace with each stroke.

Johnny can see lightning behind his eyelids from the warm heat as he grinds into Taeyong’s body and not once does the power let up. It feels like a torrent, a river overflowing. His nerves are bright and burning and his skin is hot and sweat slick but all he can feel is the brilliant cold power running through his veins and he feels dizzy it all.

Taeyong is no better, his body trembling as Johnny fucks him, his breathing short and sharp as he pulls at him desperately, scratching lines across Johnny’s back as he tries to pull more of him in, tries to draw him closer. His breath is hot against Johnny’s neck, his whimpers and cries cascading over each other, like a building storm.

And when he comes there is thunder overhead and lightning in the air and they are safe and sound in the eye of the storm.

*

The changes that come with their decision are insurmountable and many, not least of all the confrontation between Taeyong and Leeteuk, which is the first and only thing he does alone since their binding.

Johnny spends the three hours it takes sitting in the wings of the Witch Heart itself, with almost the entire coven looking at him and smirking.

Johnny doesn’t mind it. There is a tension missing from the air that seems painfully obvious now that it is missing, and with the extension of his awareness thanks to Taeyong, Johnny is glad for its absence.

Because that is perhaps the second most impossible change with their decision.

Bound now to Taeyong, as he had always been meant to be, comes with two specific differences: the first and Johnny’s personal favourite, is his constant awareness of Taeyong. The second is that Taeyong’s magic makes  _him_  in turn more aware.

The Heart feels larger than it had before. There is more to the castle and its gardens, more to light and shadow. More to magic and the witches who shine with it.

It feels as if he rediscovers something new every few hours. He had spent nearly twenty years building up to this moment but everything he had learned or been prepared for seems to have disappeared in the five years he spent away from Taeyong.

He can only remember the basics and while it’s been a long time since he last looked at the books pertaining to the Binding, reading them through with Taeyong curled around him feels like learning to fly after jumping off the top of the tower.

What is worse is that Jeno has been looking at him with a wide-eyed hesitancy that is two parts curiosity to one part fear and Johnny is waiting for the inevitable days when the young Witch Guard finally comes out with his questions.

Especially since they are only months away from Jeno and Jaemin's own Binding 

Not that he’s going to be much help.

As careful as the wording in each book is, none of it seems comparable to how strange it feels to have this secondary awareness of someone else entirely. How disconcerting it is when he can feel the echoes of Taeyong’s emotions and most of all how strange and almost overwhelming magic is as it runs through him.

Because Johnny is his anchor now, he binds Taeyong back to the earth, back to the fabric of another being so that he cannot be pulled apart by the forces he controls.

And so Johnny feels what Taeyong does, and Johnny’s runes by comparison are nothing. He had been terrified by the power inside the fire runes gifted to him by Doyoung all those years ago and now they feel like  _nothing_  against the firestorm resting just outside of Johnny’s awareness.

But despite that, the biggest change is perhaps the smallest and yet it makes Johnny’s heart swell every single time.

Taeyong smiles.

It is like a memory made anew every time Johnny sees it and as many problems as they have caused by Binding so recklessly, none of it can possibly matter when he can see Taeyong smile like he did when they were children.

There is a happiness in him that feels just as precious to Taeyong as it does to Johnny.

Not that Johnny is the only one to experience Taeyong’s rediscovered joy.

It rained the whole time they were fucking, Johnny learned later, from a smirking Yuta. A literal climax of a storm to match the climax of their Binding.

It makes Johnny choke on his wine and makes Taeyong go red but no one else seems to have the gall to tease them about it.

After all, Yuta is only one of a few to understand how long ago their Binding began. Sex really was the simplest way to complete the ritual, a physical  _and_  spiritual joining.

Two torn pieces reaching desperately for their other half.

It's still the corniest solution in the world, really.

But Johnny wouldn’t trade it for the world. No matter how many times Yuta makes crude hand gestures any time the weather changes.

And despite the distraught expression on Donghyuck’s face as he stares at a similarly despondent Xuxi, the weather is still clear as they gather around the Hollow Gates once more.

Johnny stands along the parapet with Doyoung and Yuta to watch as the five Witch Princes farewell the soldiers returning to the wall.

Kun standing in Johnny’s place at the head of the group.

He’s wearing the same uniform as Johnny now, with his coat fitted and black, embroidered with the exquisite branches of a cherry tree on one shoulder in silver thread. He looks completely grown out of the last vestiges of his youth, blonde haired and looking as imperial as his position requires.

Johnny has never been prouder.

“Commander Qian,” Prince Leeteuk says, stepping forward from the far right. As eldest it is his place to see them off. To bless the returning soldiers back to the Wall.

“Prince Leeteuk, I return myself and my soldiers to the Wall at the call of our King and Queen. I beg the Witch Heart safe passage and your blessing.”

Leeteuk’s smile is a familiar warmth as he steps forward to press a rune into the air above Kun’s bowed head.

“You have served the people well, Commander Qian,” Leeteuk says. “I bless your path and your courage, and may the Witch Heart see you and your soldiers return to us safely in time.”

Taemin is wearing a similar smile as he steps forward and begins his own blessing.

But all Johnny can see is Taeyong, all he can _feel_ is Taeyong, as the Witch of the Storm keeps glancing his way under the falling boughs of cherry blossoms.

“You two really are the  _worst,”_  Doyoung scoffs, but there is fondness in his voice and laughter in the air and all Johnny call feel is joy.

Like the warmth of a spring storm.

“Always,” he grins.

And Taeyong feels it too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thankyou for reading my fic  
> I hope you enjoyed my attempt at spur of the moment world building and it wasn't too ridiculous.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks again as always to Mon, who helped me beta read this and put up with all my complaints. She's the best 
> 
> If you would like to come and ask questions or make friends I would love that.  
> [ @CaptainJacq](http://twitter.com/captainJacq)
> 
>  
> 
> [ Curious Cat"](Http://curiouscat.me/CaptainJacq)


End file.
